Authors: Andre Norton
There sat Guenevere. Her richly embroidered robe was a clear yellow, like ripening grain. There was a thin crown of red gold on her hair, which was so near the color of her robe that hair melted into cloth and cloth seemed a part of hair. A heavy necklace of amber was around her throat, and earrings of that same mystic gem dangled against each cheek as she leaned forward, her eyes narrowly intent on—whom?
Merlin traced her gaze. She was looking at Modred and about her lips there lay a faint shadow of a lazy smile.
For a long moment Merlin studied her intently, for he knew that something lay in that look which he could not read. And his inability to do so was disturbing. That the women of the tribes were puzzles for him was perhaps a kind of maiming, though that thought was startling in itself and he did not have time to consider it now. He had believed Guenevere a doll, a plaything, without any thoughts which might be of service to his own goal. Was she more?
He was searching now for another face, however. So he turned from the bright sunlight of the Queen to the more subdued rainbow of her ladies. Some he knew by name, others were but flower faces which he had never chosen to study with as much interest as he now gave them. Nowhere was the one he sought. There was no dark lady as vivid, or perhaps more vivid, than the Queen. If Nimue had introduced Modred to the court, she had not come here herself, or else she chose not to attend this feast.
Slowly Merlin sought for her with that other sense which he rarely used in such a large company, mainly because it could be overwhelmed and lost when there were so many minds and personalities all emitting energies of their own. No, he would take blood oath his enemy was not present.
But her will was here, in the person of the King’s “nephew.” Merlin began to plan anew. He could not believe that this sudden news of Saxons at the coast signified any great difficulty. It would seem that Arthur himself looked on this ride as a diversion, a chance to show his new-found nephew the dexterity and invincible force of the Black Horse troops.
Now—Merlin knew it inside himself, swelling, pushing aside, erasing all the doubts of his half-human heritage— now was the time for him to do what should be done in this hour. Summon the Sky ships at long last—with or without Arthur’s concordance!
He had withdrawn, even in the midst of the feasters, into his own thoughts. Now he was suddenly aware that the men about him were rising, calling on their armor bearers, making ready to ride. There was excitement in them, that fiery thirst for battle that always marked the tribesmen. He could feel the force of their emotions kindling an answer in himself. And he was quick to control it with that other part of him which was not of this world,
but of the Star Lords; that part of him thought, planned and used invisible forces to accomplish its ends, not the sharp-edged primitive weapons about him.
There was one standing before him, looking into his eyes. Merlin, now alert, stared back at Modred.
“They call you bard.” Modred’s voice was low-pitched, to pass unheard in the clamor about them now. “They also name you sorcerer, son of no man.” There was an insolence in his tone which would have brought any of the tribesmen to his feet, sword half out, ready to offer an open challenge in return.
“All that is the truth.” Merlin was a little mystified by this open approach, though he had felt from the first that Nimue’s man would in some way make plain his feeling.
“And how much of it is true?” The challenge in the youth’s voice was even more marked.
Merlin smiled. “How much truth do any of us know concerning ourselves? Or are able to convey that truth even a little to others? We all have our own powers and forces, much or little. What matters is how we use the gifts and learning given us.”
“There is learning from the dark as well as from the light,” the other answered him flatly. “The High King listens to the priests of light, bard. The old days are done—”
Now Merlin laughed. The same battle fever which gripped those around him at the message that there were Saxons to be met arose in him, but for another reason. Nimue, through this youth, was delivering her challenge. And when it came to war, then his doubts vanished. He could draw on the forces he had used that day when the stone rose to his signal and moved. What had eaten him lately in this court? He was no useless tool; he was a commander of such powers as none in this hall had ever seen. Now his mind moved rapidly as he enumerated those powers in part, even as his surface thoughts probed at Modred.
“Have you never heard this, Lord Modred,” he asked, making a mockery of that name, light mockery which the boy caught, for there was a dark flush rising under his skin, “that there is that which was, is and will be? I think she who taught you knew that promise well.”
He had half turned away when Modred caught at the sleeve of his robe.
“You are insolent, bard! And what mean you by ‘she’?”
Merlin laughed again. So Nimue had not been able to establish full control of this nursling of hers. He might look like one of the Old Blood but he had the ways of the tribes, with that spark of angry fire rising at the first crossing of mental swords.
“Boy”—he gave him no “lord” this time—“you have not learned manners, whatever else you have been taught.” Merlin twitched the sleeve of his robe from between the other’s fingers. “Most of all, you should learn the nature of your man before you speak.”
Perhaps he had given the boy a hint too much with those words. But he was also of tribe blood and royal as Modred. He also thought that Nimue must not have done too well in choosing this tool for her meddling. He was not another Ector, nor even a Cei—he was partly a fool.
Merlin made his way through the throng of excited men. He had his own mission, now that he had at last made up his mind. However, at the door he paused to look back. Modred was still staring after him, and now the boy’s hand lay on another arm, that of one of the priests from overseas. The priest’s shaved face was alive with emotion and Merlin saw that Modred’s lips were moving. That he stirred some pot of trouble, Merlin had no doubt. But what kind of trouble ... He shrugged.
He went swiftly to his own quarters and put aside the bard’s robes. Those white lengths made him too conspicuous. He pulled on a simple tunic over breeches, picked up a hooded cloak. Thus garbed, he found a fresh mount, filled saddlebags with bread and cheese from the kitchens where the servants milled about doing the same for the troops gathering at the King’s orders. But Merlin rode out first, and in the direction of the mountains.
It had been several years now since he had taken this way, but he could never forget each twist and turn of its going. And the time he had spent living wild in the woods never departed from his mind either, so that he made small camps at night without fire, and was able to hide his going well, which had become habit with him.
The ruins of Nyren’s hold showed now only as a single rumbled outer wall overgrown with bramble and bush. There were no longer any ghosts left there to trouble him. But Merlin halted for a long moment as he came near it, trying wistfully to remember how it had been when that was the clan home for one Myrddin.
Then came the upward slope. There he stripped his mount of bridle and saddle, hobbled it and turned the horse loose to graze while he went to the mirror. He picked free the stones of his door to go inside. The cave was very dim. Not one of the cubes showed any light, and he did not approach the mirror. This time he had no question to ask. He knew well what must be done.
Edging along the wall he came to a cylinder as tall as his forearm, as big around as a circle his two hands could make, thumb touching thumb, little finger against little finger. Stooping he gathered that up. Long ago the mirror voice had told him of this, of how it must be used. The instructions were as clear in his mind now as if they had been issued within the hour. This was the full purpose of his life. There must be no more hesitation, no more trying to work through men whose natures betrayed over and over the will of the Star Lords.
The beacon was lighter than he thought it would be as he carried it out into the open. He set it to one side, re-closed the door with the stones. He was not finished with the mirror. Arthur
would
come sooner or later, even as had been planned. There would be time for that. How long it might take for his message to reach the ships, he had no idea. Months, years ... it was his task to keep Arthur king until that hour when those others would come.
Holding the cylinder close against him as one embraces a longed-for treasure, Merlin started down the slope.
12.
There was no light this time when Merlin reached the Place of the Sun. The year was late, harvest was well in and cold bit fiercely at a man in the frost-tinged early mornings, the long dark nights. And the stones seemed to stand bleakly aloof now, as if they had withdrawn from all possible contact with the men of this earth.
If he still had the shining sword his task would have been comparatively easy. But now that was Arthur’s, and Merlin must make do as best he could with his knowledge alone. As he penetrated the pillared circles he shivered with more than the reaching fingers of the cold wind. The kinship which he had always felt waiting for him here was missing, closed off like a door to shut out the unwanted in the dark of night.
Nor did Merlin lift his hand to caress any of the stones as he had been wont to do on his earlier visits here. Necessity drove him directly to the task. So he approached the King Stone where it lay, flanked on either side by the rude arches in all their strength.
Carefully putting down on the ground what he had carried through these days of travel from the cave in the mountains to this site, Merlin considered the stone.
It was plain that he could not merely set his burden out, enthroned on the stone, as he had once naively thought to do. Anyone passing here, shunned though the site generally was, might be moved by curiosity to inspect the beacon. No, it must be well hidden and his training told him exactly where: under the massive block of stone itself.
He had moved the rock once to prove his strength, therefore he could move it again, though the task was a formidable one without the sword. He had only the short
blade of his belt knife and that was not fashioned from the wondrous metal. Nevertheless he must use it
It was dusk when he had reached the stones. Their shadows cut deep, and there was something about those shadows. He found himself jerking his head around now and then to stare intently at one or another of the pools of dark. Though he knew that Nimue had previously used only such illusions as he himself could call up at command, still there remained a residue of the uncanny, the not-to-be-known in this place.
Merlin recalled what Lugaid had once said, that a temple where the worship of certain forces had continued for a long time absorbed into itself the power of belief rising from those worshipers. That power, too, could be drawn on by the men who know how to awaken it.
Only this was not a place of the night. It needed dawn or the full beams of the sun, which had long been honored here as a source of life, to bring forth its full energy. He must wait out the hours of the night. But he could use that time to prepare himself for what would be the greatest effort he had yet made, greater even than the parade of illusions which had brought about Arthur’s fathering.
Picking up the beacon once again, he moved over to the tumbled mound which had been Lugaid’s dwelling. There he made his rude camp, drinking from a small spring, now almost silted up again since the Druid had not come to clear passage for the water, eating the last of the provisions he had carried from Camelot.
Merlin settled then with his back against the half-toppled wall of rough stones and looked back over the Place of the Sun. As the light fast faded the wind came. When that blew around and over the pillars there rose a weird wailing sound; the imaginative might well read into it the lament of men and women now long vanished from the earth, yet still somehow alive and longing for a safe return.
Not for the first time Merlin wondered about the Sky Lords. What did they seek here that they were so determined to come again? If they were mighty enough to travel from one of those stars now shining above him to another, why could they not have found another world which would welcome them?
Was there some quality found only here which they
must have in order to endure as a race? Did they need mankind in order to survive? The mirror had been evasive whenever he had tried to probe into that. He had often been overwhelmed, when it poured forth information, with much he could not begin to understand because his world had no names for the strange artifacts, the complicated machines those others used with ease. But some of the most simple questions appeared in turn to silence the voice, as if it in turn were baffled by such searching on his part.
Though he did not close his eyes now, but continued to watch night engulf the Place of the Sun, Merlin was at work inside himself, drawing out scraps of knowledge, summoning energy to buttress all his power. This would be no fashioning of an hallucination, it would be a real act.
He was a general as supreme as Arthur, but his troops were not men. Down and down he delved into his own memory and mind. And then, with a sudden start, he recognized a picture which that memory supplied. There was Nimue in this place, her body white, her hair tossed by the wind. He could hear the honey smoothness of her voice, almost reach out to touch the hand she extended to him. No!
Resolutely Merlin fought that memory which was so troubling. He was a little apprehensive ... could he perhaps actually touch Nimue now by recalling her too plainly? Out of his mind—he must thrust her safely away.
The mirror, he must concentrate on the mirror, as if it stood full-length before him now. He grew calmer and his turmoil faded as he visualized the mirror. And its voice was in his ears so that he could sort out words, phrases, fit such together to reinforce his knowledge of what must be done here at sunrise.
He was no longer tired. Power was growing steadily in him, filling his body, his mind. He must hold it so contained until the moment came to release it to do his will. Time for darkness—time for light—but he did not mark the hours. Nor was he any longer cold. Power furnished heat in his body so that he threw off his hooded cloak in spite of the frost-breathing wind.
Chancing to glance down at his two hands resting on his knees, he was not surprised to see that his flesh was giving off a kind of glow. Why shouldn’t it? He was afire with force, and now he had only to contain it until the moment
to come. His lips moved but not even a whisper emerged from between them, only in his mind did the archaic words echo in the proper patterns.
Merlin rose when the sky grayed. Though he had been sitting through the night his limbs were in no way stiffened. He felt instead like a runner advancing to the starting post, eager to be gone. His left arm cradled the beacon against him. His right hand held the belt knife, drawn and ready.
Long strides brought him to the King Stone and he stood behind that block ready to face the rising sun. He placed the beacon on the ground between his feet. And now he stretched out his hand, began to bring the knife blade ringingly down on the stone, while from him poured all those words he had gathered out of memory, arranged in the right pattern, ready for this great moment in his life.
Beat—beat—ever increasing in tempo. The sky showed the fore banners of the rising sun. His voice sing-songed an invocation older perhaps than even the stones about him. Beat—chant—beat—
The stone—it was coming alive, reluctantly, heavily, in grudging answer. But it was coming! The beat had increased to a flashing of metal; sparks flew from that meeting of rock and iron. Merlin’s voice rose as he called on the force which was imprisoned in the stone to answer to his will.
The block stirred, not as quickly as it had under the summons of the sword, but it was answering! His will harnessed the force—he raised the knife blade—one end of the stone followed.
His tunic clung damply to his body. In spite of the cold he was feverish with heat, sweat pouring from him. Up and up. Until that block stood on end. Then he said the single word he had never dared use before, one of the Great Bindings of Power. The stone remained on end, the place where it had lain was bare.
Merlin dropped to his knees. He began to dig with the knife point in the uncovered oblong of earth, working as fast as he could, for he had no idea how long that Word would hold an inanimate object Dig, scrape loose the soil, dig again, deeper, deeper, faster—
At last he had the pit ready and he fitted the beacon into it, standing erect, its lighter end pointing to the sky.
Now he worked even faster, pounding back most of the earth he had excavated, hammering the soil down with both palm of hand and butt of knife. Finally he threw aside the knife and, with his earth-stained, broken-nailed hands, he touched the top of the cylinder at a certain place, turned it so that the cover itself slid around to the left under the pressure of his fingers.
Trembling from near exhaustion, Merlin threw himself back from the bed of the stone. He got to his knees, looking up at the towering block. In his mind he released the Word. The stone fell with a crushing force. He only hoped that his pit for the beacon had been deep enough to preserve it. But now he was so spent that he could only lie, one hand against the King Stone, only half conscious that he had finished his task.
It was the touch of the stone which aroused him at last He had always been able to feel the force imprisoned in this mighty block, but this steady throb was new. Merlin gave a cry of relief and joy as understanding reached him. He had succeeded. The stone itself was charged by the beacon—he had indeed lighted the way. But when would the ships come? How far, how many, when?
He was too weak to rise to his feet at once, but sat there, his head drooping on his breast, his hand resting on the rock, aware most of all of that steady beat.
What roused him this time was an alert of danger, as if some warning or foul stench had carried down the wind. He groped in the withered grass for his knife, his only weapon. Now he heard the thud of hooves, a shout which could only have come from a human throat.
Saxons? Outlaws? He was sure only by that warning of his heightened senses that those who came were enemies. So he did not rise to his feet, rather crept on his hands and knees into the shadow of a standing stone. From there he could see the party milling about They were not advancing directly toward his insecure hiding place, he thought they were reluctant to enter the enclosure of the Place of the Sun.
One of them came riding swiftly from the direction of Lugaid’s hut, urging Merlin’s horse before him. He could hear their excited voices but not make out the words. He was near enough, however, to see that the two who appeared to command the party wore the robes of the
priests from overseas, while their followers were plainly liege men to some tribal lord.
The priests were urging the warriors on. But, in spite of commands impatiently delivered, as far as Merlin could read their gestures, the tribesmen were not about to enter the ancient sacred place, which was a clue to their mission. For the oldest law to which all the tribes bowed was that no blood could be spilled within, no fugitive pursued into one of the Places of Power.
He was sure that he was their quarry but he could not guess the reason for their hunt. Arthur gave room at his court to the believers in the Christ and many of his people were worshipers, but he also followed the liberal policy established by Ambrosius, asking no man what god he paid homage to when he came armed and ready to join in the harrying of the invaders. There were still some of the old Roman breed who bowed knee to the Bull-Slayer Mithras, and others who served older gods of Britain.
Who had granted these hunters permission to come after him? Merlin would swear that it was not the doing of Arthur. Though the King had never been kin-close as Merlin had once hoped, he respected and sometimes listened to the man who had put the sword of Britain into his hand. No, Arthur would not turn against him. But someone had sent these hunters, and his guess fastened on Modred. Had the “nephew” come out of nowhere gained this much ascendancy at Camelot?
The priests were still urging on their followers, but the warriors drew back. So now the gray robes themselves came forward alone. One held aloft the symbol of his god, a cross of wood, and they were both chanting. Merlin saw that the sturdier of the two had drawn a sword, though that was foreign to the very teachings he was supposed to uphold: a man who was a priest was not a warrior.
Hiding like a hunted animal revolted Merlin so he now rose to his feet on the far side of the stone behind which he had taken refuge. When he stepped into sight he was as erect as a warrior awaiting an enemy’s charge.
Now that they were closer Merlin could see their features and he recognized one. He was the priest to whom Modred had been speaking in the feasting hall at Camelot So his suspicion was confirmed. This meeting was of Modred’s doing.
“Whom do you search for, men of a god’s service?” Merlin came into full view.
The one who held the cross chanted, in the tongue of Romans, an invocation against the forces of Darkness. Now he stuttered over a word, but continued his chant valiantly. His companion did not quite raise his sword. Though his eyes were those of a fanatic, he seemed not yet ready to ride down an unarmed man.
“Demon spawn!” he spat, his voice rising above the chant.
Merlin shook his head. “You stand now,” he said quietly, “in a place which has known many gods. Most are now long forgotten, because those who called upon their names in times of peril are also gone. As long as men realize that there is some greater Power outside themselves, a force which will aid them to better lives, to good will, and to peace in time, so there will be gods. What matter if some men call that Power which is the greater Mithras or Christus or Lugh? The Power is the same. Only men differ, being mortal, while the Power was, is and will be— beyond even the death of this earth on which we now stand.”
“Blasphemer!” was the cry from the priest. “Servant of the Evil One—”
Merlin shrugged. “You take upon yourself my role, Priest. It is for a bard to call names, though he does it with greater ease and skill, being well able even to insult kings to their shame in open courts when he chooses to sing them down. I have no quarrel with you. What I have heard of your Christus tells me that he is indeed one who holds true Power. But I say he is not the only one who has—or will. To each tribe of men a god arises in his own time. I salute your Christus as one who has seen the Great Light. But would such a one welcome the hunting of men who do not follow his road? I think not, for if he did, then truly he is not the Great One to whom all roads are made open and plain.”