Authors: Andre Norton
He saw the strange Druid’s eyes widen. The staff lashed across the air between them as the other might beat a man down; the wind of its passing touched Myrddin’s dust-grimed face. Yet the gesture was only empty menace, as well he realized. And with that realization the boy’s control began to regain command over his fear.
“What do you want of me?” Myrddin purposefully did not add any address of courtesy to that demand. This stranger might wear a robe like Lugaid’s, but Myrddin’s inner sense denied that he was of the breed of Lugaid.
The other had stilled his wand, though its reddened tip pointed straight at the boy as if it were a spear set for the final death thrust.
“You are the one of the foretelling, being born of no father, thus ordained for the High King’s purpose. For we who speak with the Powers have learned that never shall
his fortress stand until its mortar be slaked with the blood of a youth who has no father kin.”
Deep within Myrddin there was a stir, a half memory. There was something—perhaps he had learned it from the mirror and then forgotten. He could not always remember everything he had been shown in the hidden cave once he had left. Instead, some parts of his knowledge seemed to sink so deeply into his mind that they lay hidden there until a chance word, some glimpse of a familiar object brought them to the surface.
This was shown! Not his death, of that he was sure, and his conviction on that point gave him confidence. But he had been brought here, not only by the will of the High King, but for another reason also, one which marched with the tasks he still only dimly suspected lay before him.
If the Druid expected him to cringe, to show fear, then his was the disappointment. For Myrddin, secure in his inner knowledge, faced him chin up and unshaken.
“What Powers do you speak for?” Again he deliberately omitted any title of respect. “Perhaps in these days your voices come not from the Sky Ones, but rather from the desires of men.”
The other’s breath rasped; his eyes strove to catch and hold Myrddin’s in one of those compelling strokes of command such as would make the boy will-less, ready to obey any order laid on him. And Myrddin, summoning all he had learned for the protection of his own secrets, gazed as steadily back.
“What do you know of the Sky Ones?” this stranger asked in a voice which had lost something of its arrogance and now held a note of unease.
“What do you?” Myrddin countered.
“That this is forbidden for any not of the Mysteries to speak of.” The stranger’s face flushed with anger. “What have you spied upon, demon-bred?”
“Could I be a spy and yet know this?” Deliberately Myrddin spoke the words of recognition Lugaid had taught him so long ago.
But to his surprise the other laughed with harsh relief.
“Those are worthless now. We listen to a new Power. You cannot claim kin, being what you are and already meat for the High King’s use. Better you be truly dead so you cannot corrupt any foolish ones with your prattling of forgotten things. Enter.” He turned his head a fraction,
though not enough to take his eyes from Myrddin, as if he feared that the boy might indeed be more of an equal opponent than he now seemed. “Enter and take him!”
The man wearing the old armor pushed past the Druid, giving him a respectfully wide berth. And Myrddin made no struggle as his hands were once more lashed behind him, as he was pushed toward the door.
The Druid had turned and gone out, but he awaited them bathed in a sunlight which made Myrddin blink, unable as he was to raise a hand to shield his eyes from the glare. More of the guard closed about them, and beyond that row of armed men the boy saw clanspeople and Saxons watching him with a kind of avid greediness which made him sick inside.
The same evil which had flowed like a stench from the Druid hung about this whole company. It was meant to feed on a man’s fears, overwhelm his courage, so he would go without struggle to whatever death waited for him.
Yet, much as the boy inwardly shrank from that assault of emotion, he walked firmly, without any wavering, his head up and his control unbreached.
The road they followed climbed a hill toward the piles of stones Vortigen had commanded his fortress be fashioned from. As they went, Myrddin looked from right to left, not now searching the faces of those gathered to see the sacrifice, but rather because he was aware, as if his sight could indeed pierce through the earth, of what lay underground.
They came to a halt before a leveled stone which had been draped with a covering of elaborately embroidered cloaks. And on that improvised throne sat the High King—claiming a title no mountain man would grant him.
Myrddin saw a man he thought close to his grandfather’s age, but there was no nobility, no pride, in these features, puffed as they were by too much drink. Vortigen’s eyes were never still, but flitted ever from face to face as if he expected treachery with each breath he drew. And his hands played with the hilt of his sword, though by the soft appearance of his body, the swelling paunch about which the belt of that sword had trouble meeting, he was no warrior now.
Behind him stood a woman, graceful, much younger, with the red-gold crown of a queen in a band about her head, resting on hair as yellow as ripe grain. Her robe of
red was so overlaid with stitchery of gold that she glittered as hard as any metal figure in the sun. And in spite of her beauty of face there was in her the hardness of worked gold, not the softness of flesh.
There was no timidity nor unease in her, but she looked with boldness where she would, a faint smile carved on her lips, never warming her arrogant eyes. And when those eyes rested on the boy they glinted with what he correctly read as cruel anticipation.
“This is the boy?” Vortigen demanded. “It is proved, he is the son of no man?”
“Lord King,” the Druid answered, “it has been so proved, out of the mouth of she who bore him. For one of the Power questioned her and she could not lie. On Samain Night he was conceived through the power of some wandering ghost or demon—”
“Lord King!” Myrddin raised his voice and found that at this moment it was not shrill; rather it sounded assured and steady even in his own ears. “Why have your men of Power lied to you?”
The Druid swung halfway around, his staff moving up. But at that moment Myrddin’s deep-planted memory came fully awake. His eyes caught those of the furious priest and held them for a long moment. The flush faded from the man’s countenance, his features slackened oddly. He looked dull, drained.
Vortigen watched that transformation with something approaching awe.
“What have you done, demon-born?” He raised his fingers in the sign to ward off bad fortune.
“Nothing, Lord King, except gain for myself a space in which to tell you how ill-served you are.”
The King licked his lips. His fingers tightened on the sword hilt, half drawing the blade from its sheath.
“In what manner am I ill-served?”
“In the manner of this tower you would build.” Myrddin pointed with his chin toward the piled stones. “Dig beneath and you shall see. For below lies a spring of water which flows to soften the earth, so it cannot hold the weight of the stones you would set on the surface. And within that water you shall find the fate of this land. For there crouches the white dragon from overseas.” He glanced beyond the King’s shoulder to that upstart Queen, whose gaze was as intent on him now as if she, toe, would
use her will as a weapon. Faintly he could feel the push of that will. But the force was feeble against what the mirror had built within him.
“Beyond the other edge of the pool is the red dragon of the Old Ones. And these strive ever to win an endless battle. Now the white dragon waxes in strength, and he shall nigh overcome his enemy. But the day lies close, closer than you know, Lord King, when the Red shall prevail. Set your men to spades and let them seek. You shall find it as I have said.”
The hand of the golden Queen reached forward as if to touch Vortigen’s shoulder. And in that moment Myrddin, carried out of himself, filled with understanding from the mirror, knew her for the enemy. She was more than just the Saxon wench who had seduced the High King, she was—
He frowned, sensing a new menace he did not understand and the nature of which he had not fronted before. Alarmed, he centered his concentration on the High King, instinctively knowing that this was the moment in which his own trained will was at its height.
“Let them dig, Lord King!”
Vortigen, leaning forward on the stone slab so that his shoulder was now well beyond the Queen’s reach, nodded heavily and echoed:
“Let them dig.”
So they brought spades and cut into the earth, laboring hard and as fast as they might under the King’s eyes until there was a swift gush of water from the side of the hill. Then they hurried to lay bare a small cave in which there was a pool.
Myrddin drew on his powers. This was no small clouding of memory so that he would not be seen by his peers, their young minds lying well open to such bewilderments. No, he must create an illusion those here would not forget.
There was a flash of red on one side of the water, a spear of white flame on the other. The tips of those fires inclined toward each other, inclined and wavered. For as long as he might, Myrddin held the illusion and then, drained of energy, allowed the flames to sniff into nothingness. But there was awe on the faces of those about him. Someone hastily cut through his bonds.
The High King turned a blanched, strained face in his direction.
“It is the truth—the truth,” he repeated, his voice loud in the silence that had fallen on the hilltop.
“And I will give you another truth.” Out of nowhere Myrddin found the words which he knew he must say. “Your day comes to sunset, High King. Know that Ambrosius advances with the evening star!”
4.
“They speak of you as a prophet, boy.”
The commander wore his red cloak flung back to display a breastplate of the old Roman style, one bearing the design of a laurel wreath encircling a god clutching thunderbolts in either hand. He was stocky, with a closed face, as if he never allowed emotion to uncover what he might consider a weakness. He was of the Roman pattern in more than his dress: his weathered, swarthy skin, his hair clipped close to his skull, his jaw shaved clean, though his beard was so heavy that it seemed only momentarily restrained by such measures.
Myrddin sensed this man’s strength of purpose like another kind of armor or weapon. This was truly a leader of men. All they had said of Ambrosius Aurelianus was the truth: he was the last of the Romans, with all their virtues and firmness of purpose—and perhaps their faults as well. This was a captain one could follow, but he was not the man Myrddin sought, not one to weld the broken factions of Britain into one nation again. He was too much of a Roman to be anything to the tribesmen but a worthy war chief, looking toward the past and a life which the years of disunion had wiped forever away.
“Lord.” The boy chose his words carefully. This was one to whom he could not tell the entire truth, for Ambrosius would not believe it. “Lord, I am of the mountains and I knew this land. I only said what the High King’s men should have known, that there can be no firm foundation where a spring eats under the crown of a hill.”
“And these dragons—white and red—which our prisoners swear they saw at war?” countered Ambrosius swiftly. “Where did they come from, also out of your spring?”
“Lord, men see what they expect. The water lay as I said, therefore they were prepared to see what else I had
pictured for them. The dragons were in their minds, for that much was the truth as they knew it. The white dragon of the Saxons sat in honor in Vortigen’s hold and and the red which is of our land was in defeat.”
He met the other’s piercing gaze squarely.
“I will not,” Ambrosius said with an emphasis which no one could mistake, “have any practice of sorcery. Such is both an abomination before the gods and a beguiling of fools. Remember that, my young prophet! Though a man may seize any weapon to save his life, he would do well thereafter not to try it again. I and my men fight openly, with these.” He touched the sword which lay on the table in front of him. “That magic of the night, the evil of witchery, is not ours. Let that thrice-damned Saxon witch, who has so beguiled Vortigen to his undoing, try such methods.”
Myrddin had heard the tale, that it was the Queen who had produced the poison used in the murder of Vortigen’s eldest son, starting the revolt of the King’s own followers against him.
“Lord,” he answered, “I am no sorcerer. And I ask no more of you than to be allowed to depart to my own place.”
He thought he detected a trace of curiosity in the other’s glance.
“You are of the blood of Nyren, a worthy fighter and a loyal man. And you are of an age for the taking of arms. If you wish, I can place you among my troops. Only no more prophecies or the addling of men by words.”
“Lord, you offer me a great honor.” Myrddin bowed his head for a moment to acknowledge the courtesy the other had extended. “But I am not a man of the sword. My service to you will lie in other ways.”
“What other ways? Do you claim to be a bard with the power of words? Boy, you lack the long years for the learning a bard must have. And I am no king to send a talker rather than a troop against my enemies. I will not name you coward, for it seems by all accounts that you stood in mortal danger and came forth unharmed, by the use of your wits alone. But in this hour it is weapon against weapon, and the Saxons do not understand the power of words such as some of our people will listen to.”
“Lord, you say sorcery, but there is in me sometimes
the gift of foretelling. Do you also claim that to be wholly evil?”
Ambrosius was quiet for a long moment, then he replied in a lower, more meditative tone.
“No, I do not deny the truth which lies in foretelling. But it is an evil in this manner: should a man know that victory lies before him, then he shall be less desperate in battle; if he knows defeat faces him, then already his heart is that much gone out of him and he will be the quicker to cry off from attack. Therefore I do not wish to know what lies beyond this moment, nor do I wish to consult any augury, even those the Legions did in their day. So I think you are right, Myrddin of the House of Nyren. If that is the service you would offer me, I must refuse it, and it would be better that you do go to your own place.
“What you have done, laid the prophecy upon the forces of Vortigen in our favor, for that our thanks. And we shall strive mightily that the red dragon wins his battle, without sorcery. Call upon our people for a horse, for supplies, but get you from us and soon.”
Thus Myrddin, who had gone out of the mountains a captive and a bewildered, frightened boy, returned into those fastnesses still a boy in body, but in spirit and mind another. For he who has called upon such Powers leaps in that single moment from youth to manhood, and is never afterward the same. He carried enough provisions in his saddlebag to be able to avoid the clan house, riding straight to the cave instead.
He loosed his mount in the small valley beneath the slope on which the cave lay and climbed to edge through the crack and come down into the place of the mirror. When he reached that point, he was aware at once that something about the cave had altered, though at first sighting all was the same—the lines of light still flickered across the installations, the mirror faced him as it ever had.
That strength of will which had sustained him through his journey—from the town where Vortigen had been driven into flight and where the forces of Ambrosius were now camped—deserted him. He sank down on the seat before the mirror, deeply burdened with the fatigue of his journey, empty-minded and spent
Yet uneasiness pricked at him. Even in this secret place
all was not well. He fumbled with his saddlebags, found dry bread and a small leather bottle of sour wine. Dribbling the wine on the bread, he ate only because he knew that his body needed the food. It was not the hearty fare he had shared with the soldiers, but it was all he had now.
As Myrddin chewed he looked at the mirror, seeing his own reflection once again: small, dark, with tumbled hair, a face in which, now that he looked more carefully, the planes differed from those of his fellows. Had that difference come from his Sky father? He had never seen, among the wealth of pictures the mirror had shown during the years of his instruction, any other person.
Wearily the boy chewed and swallowed, but now and again he glanced around him. For, though he could see the cave plainly, more than half of it also being reflected in the mirror, the feeling that he was not alone persisted. It was like a trace of some scent on the air. So he found himself sniffing as if, like one of the great hunting hounds, he might uncover the intruder.
Once his hunger was satisfied, Myrddin rose to begin a thorough search between the squares and cylinders, tracing each possible opening between them back to the stone of the walls. There was nothing, no one.
But if the intruder was not here now, had there been someone earlier? Though how he could sense that he did not understand. Back once more on the bench before the mirror, he subsided, his head in his hands. For the time being he had lost that sense of purpose which had drawn him on, and he shrank dully from any thought of the future.
There was a sharp, ringing sound, as a piece of bronze might sing when struck by another bit of metal. Myrddin raised his head. The mirror was awakening—his reflection had vanished from its surface. In place there was the familiar swirl of mist. That deepened, thickened . . .
He was staring at a girl. Her body was held tensely and she had the attitude of one listening for a sound she dreaded. Behind her lay a countryside he knew well, the slope which reached to the cave entrance.
But this was no maid from the clan house! Her body was very slight and thin, not yet showing the curves of womanhood. Her skin was pale, the color of sea-bleached ivory, against which her hair was a cloud of dark, but a
dark in which queer red lights played as if the sun sought out its match in it.
Her face was nearly triangular, the cheekbones wide apart, the chin almost pointed. Myrddin realized suddenly that the planes of that other countenance were similar to his own.
She wore a single simple garment fashioned as if a square of green had had a hole cut in its center, through which she had thrust her head, and then she had drawn in the folds about her middle with a wide belt which was formed of chains of a silvery metal braided together. Ankle boots latched with the same metal covered her feet. But she had no bracelets or necklaces.
Now she raised long-fingered hands to push the wind-tossed hair away from her eyes and at that moment she no longer gazed about her but stared straight from the mirror at Myrddin. He was startled, half expecting her to see him. But there was no flash of recognition in her eyes.
Simple as was her garment, young as she appeared to be and odd as she looked in the wilderness of this mountain place, yet there was about her an air of authority such as the daughter of a chieftain might have. Myrddin pushed forward on his bench, intent on conning her features, for she interested him strangely, more than any girl or woman he had seen. He wondered who she was and how she had come to be on the mountain. Was she some visitor at the clan house? Yet never did the girls wander far from that haven of safety, not in these days when the land might well hold war bands on the prowl.
It was then that the voice which was so familiar to him but whose source he had never discovered, unless it issued in some manner from the mirror itself, spoke;
“This is Nimue and she is Merlin’s bane, for she is of the Others.”
“What others?” Myrddin was jolted into demanding. The mirror voice still called him by that strange name. He had come to accept it, but to himself he was always Myrddin.
“Those who would not raise man again,” returned the voice flatly. And after a moment’s silence it began anew:
“Listen well, Merlin, for the evil approaches and you must be armed against it. In the ancient days when our people came freely to this world there arose a mighty nation, great beyond the dreams of men living now. That
knowledge which was of our gathering we offered freely to your people, those who could open their minds to it And men prospered. Their daughters wived with the Sky Bom. Children born from such unions were mighty heroes and people of Power. Nor did we then realize that within your species lay a flaw.
“But there were others like us who also took ships between the stars. And it was not to their minds that those of your kind should rise to greatness and knowledge. Thus they came secretly into your world and there they found the flaw, that your kind were prone to violence. They then used this flaw to their own purposes. And there followed such wars as your breed now has no knowledge of. For such were fought with lightning drawn from the skies and forces which overturned mountains, making land into sea and sea into land.
“Many of us died in those battles and those we had taught died also. Then the Dark Ones withdrew to the skies once more, exulting that man would not rise now to threaten their own rule, but would remain a brutish thing, unlearned and unlearning. Some of our children survived, and they attempted to keep alive the knowledge. But everything they had depended upon, such machines as you see about you now, had been swept away in the disasters of the earth. Metal could not be fashioned and man once more turned to stone and the bones of his prey for tools and weapons. Those who had begun their lives in great cities ended them in rude caves, with nothing but their hands and such knowledge as they could remember locked within their heads.
“Those of us who would have come again could not, for the lovers of the Dark controlled the roads between the stars. And if we ventured forth we were harried and destroyed. So passed ages beyond counting by your species. To all things comes a time of decay, however, and our enemies began to dwindle, though we, too, had lost very much. But we had not forgotten those of our own left helpless on this world and, gathering all that we had left, we fashioned certain ships which could cross the void. These had to be small and so could not transport us, but they could carry certain elements of life within them. And if any reached its goal, what it carried could start the renewal of our race. We launched these seed ships with
hope, for the ships of the Dark Ones had not been seen in our heavens for a long time.
“At last one of our ships came to earth. But the beacon which drew it here was very old and the forces within it so limited that it was by happy chance only that it was still alive enough to bring the seed ship down.
“Thus were you born, Merlin. And you are set an early task, for we must have peace in which to grow again. To enforce this peace you are to be our hands and our liege man. Now the beacon which brought that first ship here is dead. But there stands a greater beacon in this land, one which if properly set alight once more will draw all of our fleet to it. And to rekindle that is also your task.
“There is now this threat: even as we left beacons to bring us once again into your world, so did those Dark Ones station alarms and similar drawing points. And one such has been alerted. From the seeding left within that has come this Nimue. She seeks to keep you from your task. Be warned, for all the cunning of the Dark Ones is being taught her. And she will have forces which may in the end match your own. She has already come here, drawn by the energy of this place, though she has not found what she seeks, for the defenses placed here still hold high. But she will search you out and what you will do she will try to undo, to keep man lesser than what he can be.
“Two duties have you, one to bring full Power back into the Great Beacon. And that is a mighty task, for a part of what was once there has long since been taken overseas to the Western Island. Some who had a faint remnant of the old knowledge recognized the Power in it and wished to try to use it though, having only a small part of learning, they could not do so.