The Perilous Order: Warriors of the Round Table
Author: A. A. Attanasio
Date: 1999-09-15 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Speculative; Fantasy
Description: Arthor has achieved the impossible - pulling the sword Excalibur from the stone. He is now king of all Britain. But the tribal chieftains are not willing to accept a beardless 15-year-old lad as their ruler. Arthor must take his frail power and win the pledges of loyalty from his subjects. Arthor has pulled Excalibur from the stone, and Merlin has revealed to him his royal lineage. Now he must win the loyalty of the tribal chieftains who admire his courage and ferocity in the fight but deplore the Christian God he worships. Arthor must take his frail power, his perilous order of warriors, and
Publisher: New English Library

The Perilous

Order:

Warriors of the

Round Table

N E W E N G L I S H L I B R A R Y

H o d d e r & Stoughton

Forsaken by our dreams, naked but for our stories, with
only the stars for food, the four directions for shelter, and
the spirit of all that we love our only companion, we live
as warriors of a perilous order, champions of kindness,
who batde for virtue in the ruthless war of survival.

W h a t H a s G o n e B e f o r e

The Dragon and the Unicom began this series with the story of

King Armor's parents, Uther Pendragon and Ygrane, queen
of the Celts. By the end of the fifth century A D , Britain, the
furthermost frontier of the Roman Empire, had become almost
wholly isolated from the few centers of commerce that remained
in Europe. The collapse of Rome in AD 410 left Britain without
a central government, and the island quickly fragmented into
scores of miniature kingdoms ruled by local warlords. With
the magical assistance of Merlin, a demon given human form
and converted to Christianity by Saint Optima, Ygrane allied
her Celtic chieftains with the British army of Uther Pendragon.

They united the many rivalrous domains of Britain and repelled
the ferocious invaders from the foreign lands surrounding the
island kingdom. Their fateful alliance endured only briefly,
however, for the arrangement of love and war brokered by

Merlin required the blood sacrifice of the king, as prescribed
by ancient law. In return for Uther Pendragon's soul, the

Celtic gods released their most fierce warrior, Cuchulain, to
be born again through Ygrane as Uther's son, Aquila Regalis

Thor — Arthor.

Arthor followed fifteen-year-old Arthor on his journey from

White Thorn, where he grew up in the hills of Cymru, to
the third five-year festival at Camelot, the city-fortress whose
construction Merlin supervised. Arthor, believing himself a
rape-child sired by a Saxon invader on an anonymous peasant
woman, allowed Kyner, a Christian chieftain, to train him as a
warrior of unalloyed ferocity. Arthor lived with the certainty
that his destiny was death, for his enemies in battle and ultimately
for himself in defense of his masters. Rankling at the subservient
position fate had imposed upon him, he planned to avoid

Camelot and further servitude by seeking a new and personal
destiny for himself. But the intervention of Merlin diverted
the youth into the hollow hills — the magical domain of the

Daoine Sid, the Celtic gods. There, Arthor learned humility
and largeness of heart and proved himself worthy of returning
to Camelot and drawing the sword-in-the-stone, Excalibur,
emblem and agency of his true destiny as high king of Britain.

The Perilous Order concerns King Arthor's first year as
monarch. Though in his inmost heart he had always believed
himself worthy of greatness, the authority of high king of Britain
is a far more demanding reckoning than he had ever imagined.

Trained to give himself entire to the horror of war, to defend
against the ferocity of invading Wolf Warriors, the young king
must yet learn to rule a kingdom at hazard using more than mere
force. With Merlin's help, he draws to himself the capable men
and women who will, for a time, by courage, moral strength,
and magic establish a perilous order, a fragile league of pagan and

Christian defenders, whose glory will forestall the b'edarkening
of the age and resurrect the derelict hope of Britain.

C h a r a c t e r s

Aidan — clan chief, master of the Spiral Castle, the natural
fastness in the highlands of Caledonia.

Annum - t h e Other World, Celtic realm of the supernatural,
used in this series oftentimes to identify the radiant beings who
emerged with the fiery origins of Creation: cf. Fire Lords.

Arthor — Aquila Regalis Thor, Royal Eagle of Thor, son of

Uther Pendragon, deceased high king of Britain, and Ygrane,
queen of the Celts.

Azael - demon; former cohort of Lailoken.

Bedevere — one-armed steward to King Arthor.

Bors Bona — British warlord and commander of the Parisi.

Cei — son of Kyner; step-brother of Arthor.

Cruithni — king of the Picts.

Cupetianus - spokesman for the fisherfolk of Neptune's

Toes.

Dagonet — dwarf vagabond and gleeman of King Arthor's
court.

Daoine Sid - the pale people, the elves and faeries relegated
to dwell underground in the hollow hills since their overthrow
by the Fauni and the north gods.

Dwellers in the House of Fog — demons; once radiant, these
masculine beings despair of finding their way back to the
source of infinite energy from which they entered the cold
and dark of spacetime with the Big Bang; they doffed the
burning light of their prior forms, trying to adapt to the frigid,
near-lightless vacuum where they find themselves; they rail
against Creation and do all in their power to disassemble the
conglomerates of matter, believing all structure, especially
organic life, a mockery of their luminous lives before their
miserable exile.

Eufrasia — daughter of Aidan.

Fauni - the gods of the Greeks and Romans.

Fire Lords — angels; the radiant masculine beings expelled
from the compact dimensions of Creation's origin at the Big

Bang; they cherish the hope of returning whence they have
come and, cleaving to the burning scraps of their fiery origin,
have devoted themselves to furthering the assemblages of matter
to attain greater awareness, including fostering the knowledge
of science by mortals.

Foederatus — an alliance of the north tribes, the Angles, Frisians,

Jutes, Picts, Saxons, and Scotii, determined to conquer Britain.

Furor, the — the one-eyed chieftain among the gods of
the north tribes, possessed of the trance power to see the
future; he devoted himself to fending off the terrible destiny of

Apocalypse that he believed the Fire Lords inspired in humanity
by teaching mortals the secrets of writing and of numbers, the
globe-threatening dangers of science.

Gareth - youngest son of Morgeu and Lot.

Gawain — eldest son of Morgeu and Lot.

God — the mysterious and singular female being Who
emerged with the energies of Creation at the Big Bang and

Who was followed from that hyperdimensional reality of infinite
energy by numerous masculine beings enamored of Her -
demons and angels.

Gorthyn — self-proclaimed king of the Belgae; commander
of that realm's brigands.

Guthlac — fierce wayfarer of the Picts, leader of a warband
that infiltrated the Spiral Castle.

Hjuki — Lawspeaker for King Wesc.

Keeper of the Dusk Apples - goddess of the north tribes
responsible for collecting the rare golden fruit used to make
the ritual wine that the gods imbibe; mistress of the Furor.

Kyner - Christian Celt and chieftain of the clans of Cymru;
father of Cei and stepfather of Arthor.

Lailoken - the demon who, in the guise of an incubus,
attempted to seduce Saint Optima, a devout Christian nun; he
was taken into her womb and birthed as an old man who aged
backward; endowed with the supernatural powers of a demon
in mortal form, he learned love from his mother and became
converted to Christianity.

Lord Monkey — familiar of Dagonet.

Lot — Celtic chieftain of the northern clans of Britain;
husband of Morgeu the Fey; father of Gawain and Gareth.

Marcus — Christian warlord and duke of the Dumnonii.

Merlin - the mortal name of the demon Lailoken.

Mordred - incest-child born of Arthor and Morgeu.

Morgeu - daughter of Ygrane, queen of the Celts, and

Gorlois, duke of the Dumnonii killed in battle on the fields
of Londinium; her sobriquet, the Fey, the Doomed, came to
her from the Picts during her time of self-exile in Caledonia,
where she practiced black magic; half-sister of Arthor, she
seduced him by enchantment in an attempt to exact revenge
on Merlin, whom she held responsible for her father's death;
wife of Lot and mother by him of Gawain and Gareth.

Nynyve - the Lady of the Lake, the youngest of the Nine

Queens; once mortal queens, made supernatural residents of

Avalon by the Fire Lords, they represent the ninety thousand
years of human history ruled over by queens.

Platorius — count and Christian commander of the Atrebates.

Rex Mundi — Lord of the World; the magical assemblage
amalgamated by Merlin to include himself, the demon Azael,
a Fire Lord, Dagonet, and Lord Monkey.

Selwa — seductive assassin of the Syrax family; niece of

Severus Syrax.

Severus Syrax — magister militum of Londinium, trade factor
in Britain of the Syrax family, an international mercantile
conglomerate.

Skuld - of the three Wyrd Sisters, the Norns, the youngest
and possessed of the ability to scry the future.

Someone Knows the Truth — the elk-headed god of the Daoine

Sid, master of the hollow hills and the Happy Woods, where
the souls of the Celtic dead bide their time before reincarnating
upon Middle Earth in forms human and otherwise.

Terpillius - vampyre procured by blood magic and induced
into the service of Morgeu the Fey.

Urd - the Wyrd Sister crone of the Norns endowed with
the power to reveal the past.

Urien — Celtic chieftain of the Durotriges.

Verthandi - of the Norns, the loveliest Wyrd Sister, gifted
with penetrating vision of all that is.

Wesc — king of the Saxons, leader of the Foederatus,
ambitious for peace and enthralled with the writing of sacred
poetry, resident of Britain in the province of the Cantii.

Wolf Warriors — elite Saxon fighting forces devoted to
the Furor and dedicated to dying in battle for the glory of
their god.

Yggdrasil — the World Tree, the Storm Tree, the Cosmic

Tree, the magnetic field of the planet; its upper branches,
reaching far above the atmosphere, serve as home for the
dominant gods; its trunk penetrates Middle Earth, the planetary
surface where mortals dwell; and its roots coil deep into the
molten interior of the globe, where the world-vast Dragon, a
chthonic magnetic sentience, slumbers.

Ygrane - former queen of the Celts, mother of Morgeu (by

Gorlois) and Arthor (by Uther Pendragon), abbess of Tintagel

Abbey and Mother Superior of the Holy Order of the Graal.

S U M M E R :

A Spiral Castle in the

Dolorous Wood

Arthor Draws the Sword

The sword came away so easily from the stone that Arthor
could only stand there startled, with the gold hilt in his
trembling hand and the silver blade flashing with sunlight.

Immediately, he tried to return it to the black rock in whose
cleft it had stood undisturbed and immovable for so long. But
the rock would not hold the blade anymore. The sword slid
from his grip and would have clattered across the anvil-shaped
stone and fallen to the ground had he not quickly seized
it again.

The hilt of gold felt pretematurally shaped to his palm and
fingers, and the blade swung lightly through the air, a natural
extension of his arm. From farther down the hill, on the slopes of

Mons Caliburnus, a small crowd uttered cries and shouts to see the
sword drawn so readily from the stone. They were the swordsmiths
and their patrons, the merchants and warriors who had come to

Camelot for the third of the five-year festivals to commemorate
the setting of this sword in the stone by the wizard Merlin.

Only moments before, Arthor had attempted to purchase
a sword from them for his brother Cei, who had damaged his
weapon on the dangerous trek from White Thorn, their home
in Cymru. The swordsmiths had mocked him, a ragged servant
with no coin and nothing of worth to barter. He had shuffled
uphill dejectedly, kicking at the hawkweed and dandelions in
the yellow clover. He would not even have tried his hand at the
sword — except that he had remembered seeing this marvelous
weapon once before.

Just days ago, on his journey to Camelot, Arthor had been
diverted into the hollow hills, the realm of the pale people of

Celtic lore known as the Daoine Sid. Those Celtic gods were
more real than mere lore — he knew that now — but that
knowing sorely troubled his Christian mind. In the hollow
hills, he had seen marvels that rocked the very foundations of
his faith: Faeries had deceived him and vampyrical lamia had
nearly torn him to pieces; Bright Night, prince of the elves,
had conversed with him; and, worst of all, he had confronted
the vehement god that the north tribes called the Furor and
had stared terrified into his one mad eye. The Furor would
have slain him on the spot but for Merlin, who at the last
moment appeared to wield this wonderful sword and fend off
the rageful god. Thus, Arthor had escaped with his life intact -
and with his wits nearly shattered.

This was that sword, he realized as the sundering truth
staggered him and he leaned back against the black stone. Was
it a dream? he queried his frightened soul. Is — this — a dream?

The loud voices now clamoring from below assured him he
was awake. And the sunlight smashing off the clear blade hurt his
eyes and branded his brain with the precise shape of the sword
that he remembered from his trespass of the underworld. How
can this be?

From below, the swordsmiths and warriors came running,
yelling at him, 'Boy! Boy! Put that sword down!'

He moved quickly to obey. But, again, the stone would not
receive the sword. He turned and lifted the blade in a hapless
shrug to show that he had tried and failed.

Merlin and Arthor

The scowling crowd edged closer, then stopped their shouting
all at once. Arthor thought for an instant that the beauty of the
sword had silenced them. Suddenly, a dark voice opened from
behind him, and he jumped and nearly dropped the blade.

'The sword is drawn!'

Merlin rose from the cliffside of Mons Caliburnus as if
hoisted by invisible wings. His midnight-blue robes furled in
the river breeze, and his wide-brimmed hat, its conical top bent
askew, cast a dark shadow over his long face.

'The sword is drawn! Bend your knees before your king!'

'But he is a boy!' one of the warriors shouted, even as most
in the small crowd genuflected reflexively before the imposing
presence of the wizard.

'This is no mere boy.' Merlin stode to Arthor's side and
placed his long arm across the lad's shoulders. Garbed in a
hempen sack-shirt, with his short hair stiff as a hedgehog's
and his pale rosy-cheeked face slack-jawed with awe, Arthor
indeed appeared a callow youth. 'This young man is Aquila

Regalis Thor — high king of all Britain. Kneel before him or
be banished!'

The command in Merlin's vibrant voice brought everyone
to their knees. Arthor, startled speechless, turned to look at the
wizard. This close, he could see the subtle crimson stitching of
astrological sigils and alchemic devices in the blue fabric. And
within the shadow cast by the wide-brimmed hat, he beheld a
strong, aged profile, pale and pocked as if carved from stone.

'Say nothing,' the wizard whispered to him. 'Hold the sword
high and march downhill to your palfrey. Slowly. Remember —
you are king. Carry yourself with regal bearing.'

Arthor complied, though his heart stammered in his chest
and his mind blurred with questions and doubts. All eyes trained
on him stared in wonder and befuddlement. None dared speak,
except for one swordsmith's apprentice, a boy no older than the
king himself, who cried out meekly, 'Long live King Arthor!'

The sound of his name married to the title king cramped his
heart tighter in his chest, nearly squeezing all his breath out of
him with astonishment. And if he could have, he would have
blessed that smith's apprentice for not mocking him.

Merlin led the way down the hillside to Arthor's palfrey
that still held the youth's dented shield on its saddle peg. The
warped image of the Blessed Virgin gazed tristfully at Arthor
as he marched stiffly forward, sword held high. The sight of
the Holy Mother reminded the youthful warrior of the many
battles he had fought for his stepfather, Kyner, chieftain of the

Christian Celts, and he lowered the dazzling sword.

'What manner of ruse is this?' Arthor asked and moved to
hand the weapon to the wizard.

'This is no ruse, Arthor,' Merlin replied as he took the horse
by the bridle and led the gray charger around a bend of mulberry
trees and lime shrubs. 'You have drawn the sword Excalibur
from the stone. As of this moment, you are the rightful king
of all Britain.'

'IT Arthor shook his head. 'Hardly so. I am but Lord

Kyner's servant. I'm a half-breed - a rape-child, sired by a Saxon
plunderer on some nameless peasant woman of Cymru.'

Merlin leveled his cold, silver eyes on the trembling lad and
said quietly, ' N o , Arthor. Y o u are no half-breed, no offspring of
violent rape. Y o u are the one and only child of Uther Pendragon
and Ygrane, queen of the Celts.'

Camelot

Above the verdant gorge of the Paver Amnis, on a high plateau,
the city-fortress of Camelot stood unfinished, surrounded by
fields of stonecutters' blocks. The incomplete curtain walls,
ramparts, and skeletal towers overlooked slopes of carnival tents
and colorful pavilions, as the third of the five-year festivals
blustered noisily. Jugglers and musicians entertained the throngs
of Roman Britons and Celts who had gathered on the wide,
emerald champaigns to celebrate their union against the tribes
of pagan invaders.

A swift rider charged across the playing fields, where con-
testants tested their skills at archery, javelin throwing, and
swordsmanship. Yells of protest assailed the rider until the
crowd heard what he was shouting: 'The sword is drawn!

Excalibur is drawn from the stone!'

Then, the pipers, fiddlers and acrobatic tumblers fell still and
silent, and excited murmurs ran through the revelers among
the feast tables and colorful gaming tents. All activity - the pig
runs, tugs-of-war, round dances, target shoots and equestrian
races — came to a sudden halt. Under the proud spires and
tiers of scaffolded parapets and half-built vallations, a hushed
excitement rippled through the festive throngs.

'Is it true?' Severus Syrax asked as the rider slid from his
steed and bowed before the pavilion of commanders, whose
tent walls displayed both Christian symbols and ornately knotted

Celtic emblems. The swarthy magister militum from the great city
of Londinium was the first to burst forth from the pavilion at
the cries of the rider. His Persian features, outlined by precise
lines of dark beard and elegandy coiffed black curls, shook with
surprise. 'Who drew the sword?'

'A boy, my lord magister,' the rider huffed. 'A boy with a
lengthy name — Aquila Regalis Thor . . .'

'Arthor!' Kyner shouted with amazement. The large Celtic
chieftain, wearing a white tunic emblazoned with a scarlet cross,
emerged from the pavilion and loomed behind the viperous

Severus Syrax. The Celt's arctic blue eyes grew wider as
he saw that the messenger spoke earnestly, and the war-
rior's gruff hand rose to his mouth and covered his ponder-
ous mustache as if holding back a startled cry. 'My son —

Arthor?'

Severus Syrax shoved aside the panting rider and pointed
with a beringed finger across the summer pastures to where
the lanky, dark-robed figure of Merlin approached, leading a
palfrey by its bridle. And upon its back - young Arthor, sword
upraised.

'Holy Mother of God!' Kyner cried out as if stabbed. 'It is

Arthor!'

Obeisance and Defiance

Merlin led the mounted swordsman past the silendy watch-
ing wagonloads of revelers and across the grassy tournament
grounds, where combatants stood stunned at the sight of the
uncouth lad holding Excalibur high in both hands. They moved
slowly as if in a royal procession, and only the stern presence of
the wizard kept the wide crowds from hooting derision at the
youth in his hempen sackcloth.

'This is your king!' Merlin announced loudly when they had
attained the range before the citadel's main gate. They stopped
before the grand pavilion of yellow tent canvas and purple
pennants where the warlords and chieftains stood arrayed in
mute astonishment. 'This is he who drew Excalibur from the
stone. On your knees before your lord — the high king of Britain

- the one son of Uther Pendragon and Ygrane, queen of the

Celts — Aquila Regalis Thor!'

Merlin's mighty voice rolled across the countryside and
boomed in echoes from the empty fortress behind him.

Immediately, the throng fell to their knees. Only the warlords
and chieftains gathered before the grand pavilion remained
standing until Merlin glared at them and Kyner dropped
hesitantly to one knee.

'Get up, you fool!' Severus Syrax cajoled. 'Can't you see
this is a wizard's trick? It's just your boy, Arthor.'

Kyner did not budge. Suddenly, a thousand innocent details
ignored over the past fifteen years fell together for him into the
prodigious realization that this boy, whom he had assumed was a
cast-off, a churlish offspring of a pagan and a peasant, was indeed
noble-born. Even Kyner's true son, Cei, the thick-jawed bully
who had berated his stepbrother over the years, admonishing
the half-breed to keep his place among the servants, understood
at once that Merlin spoke the truth, for he had fallen to his knees
before all others.

Urien, the bare-chested, salt-blond Celt of the Coast, spoke
strongly: 'If this manchild is in truth the son of our former
queen, Ygrane, I will swear to him my lifelong allegiance. But

I will hear the truth of this from the mouth of the woman who
was my queen — and not from a wizard.'

Old Lot of the North, bare-shouldered in the Celtic tra-
dition, his great mustache fluttering with his harsh breathing,
stood behind Urien and said nothing. His redhaired witch-wife

Morgeu the Fey was nowhere to be seen.

'And I speak for the British warlords,' Severus Syrax piped
up again. 'It will take more than a wizard to elevate this boy
to the throne. Even if he is the son of Pendragon and Ygrane,
he is but a child! Are we so desperate as to entrust ourselves to
a child?'

Stout and with a neckless head like a block of masonry, Bors

Bona beat a fist against his leather cuirass and shouted, 'We want
a man of deeds for our high king!'

Marcus Dumnonii, the blond commander of the West, said
nothing, but when the others turned to depart, he followed.

Within moments of Merlin's introduction of King Arthor, the
fields had begun to empty as the chieftains and warlords gathered
their people and headed to their homes in the diverse corners of
the troubled island kingdom.

Kyner and Cei

Kyner and Cei approached the king mounted on his palfrey and
knelt before him, heads bowed. 'My Lord!' the gruff chieftain's
voice cracked with hurt. 'Can you forgive us for having treated
you as a servant all your life?'

'Father!' Arthor moved to dismount, and Merlin dissuaded
him with a reproving look. The boy ignored the wizard
and leaped from the horse. 'Get up, father. Y o u need never
bow to me.'

Kyner refused to stir and kept his face lowered to the
ground. 'I bend my knee before my king. Will you for-
give me?'

'There is nothing to forgive, father.'

'I am not your father—' Kyner spoke in a small voice.

'Uther Pendragon sired you. I merely sheltered you — a servant
in my household. I am ashamed I had no more charity for you
than that.'

'Ashamed?' Arthor handed Excalibur to Merlin, who accepted
it reluctandy and took the boy's elbow with the sword. Arthor
twisted free and approached the kneeling chieftain. 'You taught
me the teachings of our Lord. Y o u obliged me to learn to read
and write both Latin and Greek. Y o u took me with you on all
your diplomatic missions to Gaul and showed me the royal
courts of the wide world. And, despite my surliness, despite
my ingratitude, you gave me an honored place at your side on
the field of battle. Y o u treated me as weD as you treated your
own firstborn, Cei.'

Cei moaned. 'My lord — have mercy on me!'

'Cei — you are my brother!'

Cei's large body shivered. 'Do not mock me, my lord.'

'Mock you?' Arthor knelt before them. 'You two alone of
all the warlords and chieftains accept me as king. By this, you
have shown me that you are truly my father and my brother.

For however long I may reign, I will never consider you less.'

Merlin put one hand under Arthor's shoulder and physically
lifted him to his feet. 'You are king. Y o u bow to no one
but God.'

'Then stand — father, brother,' Arthor said and pulled himself
free of Merlin with an annoyed look. 'Stand before me that I
may see your faces again.'

Kyner and Cei obeyed. Tears filmed the chieftain's arctic-wolf
eyes as they gazed proudly from under his jutting browbone. Cei's
broad, thick, and beardless face looked pale and frightened.

'You must help me,' Arthor told them, looking urgendy
from one to the other. 'I did not expect this — this great
responsibility. I — I don't know what to do! Please, help me.

Y o u know me best of all men. If I am truly a king, as Merlin
says I am, then you are the king's best men. Please, do not leave
me alone with this fate. You must help me to fulfill now the
mission that God has set before me.'

Merlin's Counsel

Merlin took Arthor by the elbow and led him away from the

Celtic chieftain and his son, saying, 'I need to speak with the
king in private.'

Arthor strove to twist his arm free, but the wizard's grip
could not be broken. 'Whatever you have to say to me, Merlin,
say before these good men, my father and brother.'

'In private, my lord.' The stern look in Merlin's deep-set
eyes brooked no protest.

Arthor shrugged apologetically to Kyner and Cei and
allowed Merlin to lead him past the mammoth pylons of
the open gateway to the crowded interior of Camelot. Past a
clutter of benches and stools, the wizard brought the young man
to the central court. The enormous chamber was filled with the
canvas awnings and thatched canopies of masons' work sheds.

'From here, you will rule your kingdom,' Merlin said,
gesturing grandly with Excalibur at the soaring architecture.

'If you can unite Britain.' He suddenly noticed the sword in
his hand and passed it to the lad. 'Here, take this. It's yours -
and you'll need it.'

Arthor accepted the sword with both hands. In the mirror-
blue flat of the blade, he saw his blond face too young for
whiskers, the hackles of his badger hair sticking out in unruly
spikes. 'I am king?' He looked to Merlin with this question
sincerely held in his amber eyes. 'Why?'

'You are the son, the only child, of Uther Pendragon and

Ygrane, when she was queen of the Celts.' Merlin removed his
hat and revealed a horrid visage - a long, sallow skull and eyes
of shattered glass in bonepits deep as dragon sockets. 'I hid you
at White Thorn with Kyner so that you would be safe from
your enemies — especially your half-sister, Morgeu the Fey, who
would have killed you.'

Arthor's stomach winced at the mention of the enchant-
ress Morgeu. 'She came to me . . .' His voice sounded far
away to him.

'Yes, I know.' Merlin took the boy's shoulders in his
spidery hands and sat him down on a carpenter's bench. 'She
has told me.'

'She seduced me, Merlin.' The boy's already pale face had
drained to corpse-white. 'I did not know . . . I thought she was
someone else . . . I . . . I coupled with her in the night . . . it
was dark . . .'

'Listen to me, my lord.' Merlin bent close and his haggard
face filled Arthor's sight. 'What you did, you did unknowingly.

Yet the deed is done. Morgeu the Fey carries your child.'

'No!' The sword would have fallen from Arthor's grasp had
not Merlin caught it and pressed it back into the boy's hands.

'Be strong, my king. Be strong!' Merlin felt tempted to use
his magic on the youth, but he knew that would not avail for
long. 'This is the pain that goes with the truth of your destiny
as high king of Britain. The salvation of our people comes at
a price.'

'Why?' Tears brimmed in Arthor's eyes. 'Why has she
done this? Does she not realize that she has damned us both
to hell?'

'Oh, she realizes that perfectly well, my lord.' Merlin held
the boy's quavering stare with an icy gaze. 'And now you must
understand, young king, that whosoever would serve heaven
must first conquer hell.'

King Arthor's Retinue

Proceeding at a stately pace, two elephants, garishly painted
and oudandishly feathered, marched down the cobbled road,
leaving in their wake a modey procession of horn-blowers,
drummers, tumblers, jugglers, clowns, jesters, fire-eaters and
sword-swallowers. The noisy parade approached Camelot along
the old Roman highway that led from the Amnis, where they
had disembarked a gilded barge decorated with gorgon heads
and tinsel-scaled serpents. As they passed through the river
hamlet of Cold Kitchen flying their fairy-winged kites and
rainbow windsocks, they encountered the cortege of Severus

Syrax as he departed for Londinium. The revelers swept up his
followers in their jubilant march and carried them all back to

Camelot.

That had been Merlin's plan when he had first sent notice
to the courts of war-torn Gaul that Britain would crown a
monarch this summer. He had invited all accomplished court
performers who wished the protection of the new king to
assemble at Camelot and display their prowess. The spectacle of
the trumpeting elephants and the performers garbed in flagrant
silks and sequins amused even the batde-hardened troops of

Bors Bona, and the warlord signaled for his army to return to
the camp-grounds of Camelot.

Severus Syrax himself sat astonished atop his black Arabian
stallion. Fabulously vulgar and antic as the procession appeared
at first — with bears dancing at the roadside and jugglers tossing
hatchets and torches — he recognized the glory that flowed
past him toward Camelot - and toward the king. These were
denizens of the eternal carnival, the celebration of power that
had once belonged to Rome and that now gave themselves
freely to the boy-king. Syrax dared not turn his back on this
gala. The best hope of discrediting Arthor lay with these
merrymakers, whose edge of insanity might well cut through
the illusion of nobility Merlin strove to weave about the child
he had chosen as monarch.

Begrudgingly, Severus Syrax pulled his steed around and
signed for his followers to return to the camp-grounds.

Even the denizens of Cold Kitchen, who had become inured
to the coming and going of noble personages at Camelot during
the fifteen years of its continuing construction, stood beside
the highway marveling at the accomplished stilt-walkers and
serpent charmers whose every limb crawled with vipers. The
hamlet quickly emptied as its residents followed the parade of
merrymakers to the playing fields of Camelot.

Merlin stood with Arthor atop a wooden scaffold on the
colossal stone wall overlooking the broad campestral where the
two parading elephants had come to a halt and had knelt before
him. The boy gaped at the colorful throng of entertainers who
bowed in silent respect before their new lord.

'What manner of amusement is this, Merlin?' Arthor asked
through a look of widening wonder, taking in the harlequin
crowd of mummers, buffoons, contortionists, rope-dancers, and
gleemen among a boisterous slew of trained dogs, bears, and
bright-plumed birds.

Merlin feigned surprise at the lad's query, 'Why, my lord,
this is your retinue — a pageantry worthy of a king.'

Jokers, Ribalds, Vagabonds

King Arthor, with Merlin standing at his side, sat on a ponderous
throne of cedarwood set upon a platform beneath a purple
awning. Shaded from the afternoon sun that basked the range
before the citadel's main gate, he reviewed the entertainers who
had traveled from Gaul to serve at his court. He wore a crimson
mande trimmed with ermine that Merlin had provided and, atop
his scalp of brisdy brown hair, a chaplet of laurel leaves fashioned
from gold. Held loosely in one hand and resting across his chest,
the sword Excalibur enhanced his regal appearance, though to
all who beheld him, despite his regalia, the king appeared for
what he was — a coarse youth of fifteen summers.

After passing before the king, the painted and feathered
elephants, the dancing bears, the troupe of wise dogs, and the
numerous skilled performers moved on to the playing fields,
where they caroused in the milling crowds with the other
celebrants and the Celtic and British soldiers. Already, torches
had been lit and kindling gathered for the grand bonfires that
would provide illumination for a night-long festival. Cooking
pits smoked from under the curtain wall, and feast tables piled
high with racks of roasted meats, baskets of bread, platters
of vegetables and amphorae of fruit wine rested upon kegs
of mead.

Merlin was proud to see that each of the warlords and
chieftains who had threatened to depart had lingered. Their
pennants and banners flurried in a balmy breeze above their
campsites, and music and laughter seethed beneath clouds of
summer casdes.

Last of the entourage to present themselves to the king were
the jokers and ribalds and, hidden in their midst, the vagabonds
of no trade or skill. Merlin was quick to identify the vagrants
and signaled for Kyner's men, who served as the king's guard,
to intercept them. Each was given a loaf of bread and a bladder
of wine and placed in a wagon that carried them back to the
barge that waited on the banks of the Amnis.

None of the vagabonds protested except for one dwarf,
an imp with red curls and a black-furred, silver-faced mon-
key on his humped shoulders. He ran between the legs of
the soldiers who attempted to seize him and darted onto
the platform where Arthor sat. Merlin reached for his staff,
intent on swatting the little man and his beast away from
the king.

'Do not thtrike me,' the dwarf warned through a lisp, wag-
ging a stubby finger, 'or I will do what our Lord admonitheth
and turn the other cheek!' He spun about and presented his
backside to the wizard.

With a guffaw, Arthor stayed Merlin's hand. 'What is your
name, dwarf?'

'My lord!' Merlin objected harshly. 'This is a crackbrain,
not worthy of your regal presence. Have him removed.'

The dwarf jumped about and replied at once, 'I am Dagonet.

Thith ith Lord Monkey. And you are obviouthly a king who
would be a boy! How dwoll! You're lucky we're here to
thtraighten you out.'

Bedevere

King Arthor liked the look of Dagonet. The dwarf had a large,
beardless face splattered with freckles, the visage of a boy. His
ready smile and candid blue eyes allowed for no guile, and the
king summoned him to his side. 'Tell me, Dagonet, how came
you into the company of Lord Monkey?'

'I needed a worthy mathter . . .'

Merlin would hear no more. He glowered at the dwarf,
took his stave, and left the platform. Arthor was pleased to be
left alone with someone he enjoyed talking to, and he offered
no objection to the wizard's departure.

Among the arrivals from Gaul, Merlin had spied a one-
armed, man impeccably dressed in brown cord breeks, red
leather riding boots, and a saffron ays, a short-sleeved tunic,
with one sleeve pinned to the shoulder by an eagle's talon
cast in black silver. At his hip, he wore a gladius, the short,
razor-sharp sword favored by the old Romans. His bearing
and the rub-marks on the side of his balding head caused from
wearing a helmet told the wizard that this man had lost his right
arm not by accident but in batde.

Merlin observed the stranger long enough to see that he ate
and drank moderately, responded appreciatively to the talented
pipers and fiddlers, avoided raucous fools, and keenly watched
all that transpired about him. As soon as the man noticed he
was being followed, Merlin approached him. Ever cautious,
the one-armed soldier turned so that his back was protected
by a heap of unhewn mason's blocks and bowed with curt
deference. 'My lord Merlin.'

'I notice you are an unattached soldier.' The wizard leaned
on his staff and tilted his head so that the stranger could see
clearly the demon traits of his aspect — and if the soldier felt
fear at this aspect, he did not show it. 'Why have you come
to Camelot?'

'To serve the new king,' he answered at once in a crisp
voice of lucid Latin. 'I am Bedevere of the fallen kingdom of
the Odovacar. I have in my riding bag letters of introduction
from my former masters - our holy father, Pope Gelasius, his
servant, Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and Theodoric's
brother-in-law, Clovis, the Merovingian king.'

' Y o u have served three great leaders, Bedevere,' Merlin said,
allowing suspicion to taint his voice. Were you not capable of
fidelity to one?'

Not a hint of offense disturbed Bedevere's placid coun-
tenance. 'I am faithful to the need of those I serve. I gave
my right arm defending our holy father against the Huns and
served him till death parted us and my ancestral kingdom of

Odovacar fell to the Vandals. Then I took up the cause of the

Salian Franks, whose warband consists wholly of free peasants
with no nobility and no cavalry. I served their brave leaders,

Theodoric and Clovis, until they had avenged all I had lost
to the pagans. N o w they are secure in their alliance with
the Burgundians in Aquitaine, and my services to them had
become more diplomatic than martial. I have come here to the
frontier of Christianity to offer my sword to a king who faces
certain doom, for it is my destiny before God to champion the
hopeless.'

The King's Gala

Through the night, the festivities at Camelot continued undi-
minished. Song, dance, and laughter filled the flame-lit slopes
and fields of the fortress plateau, and the tall, serrate battlements
of the unfinished citadel blazed with torches and lanterns. King

Arthor himself came down from his platform at the insistence
of his new friend, the dwarf Dagonet, and danced from one
campsite to the next, mingling freely among both Celts and

Britons, and showing favor to all.

'Look at him,' Severus Syrax groused from under his pavil-
ion, where he sipped wine with the British warlords Marcus

Dumnonii and Bors Bona. 'He's giddy. A giddy boy. Is that
our king? Bah!'

'It is good a king can laugh as well as fight,' Marcus

Dumnonii offered. 'Arthor has proven himself on the field
against the invaders. Kyner used to call him his Iron Hammer.'

'Does he strike harder than you or Bors Bona?' Severus

Syrax plucked unhappily at the tines of his black beard. 'I say
not. He is king only because he is Merlin's puppet. And we all
know the wizard is an unholy demon.'

'True, Syrax, I am a demon.' Merlin's voice coughed
like the wind, and all three warlords leaped to their feet,
goblets clattering, wine splashing. The guards posted around
the commanders' pavilion spun about, startled that the tall
wizard could have passed them unseen.

'Merlin!' Syrax shouted irately, wiping wine from his silken
blouse.

'You call me a demon, Syrax, and I am here to answer
for that.' Merlin's silver eyes shone like pieces of the moon.

'It's true. I was wholly a demon once, an incubus that forced
myself upon my dear mother, Saint Optima. But she did not
spurn me for the loathsome creature I was. N o . She loved me
as Our Lord taught us to love all of God's creation — even our
enemies. And so I am redeemed by her love and given this
human form to serve the Prince of Peace and to protect the
meek from the mighty. That also is Arthor's charge, and that
is why I serve him.'

As he spoke, memories smoked and burned slowly in his
mind, smoldering with time - so that time itself pulsed like
hot coals, dark with the heat of passions that had possessed
him when he was Lailoken, a demon inflamed with hatred
for all life. Like every demon who had been flung through
the cold void with the angels when heaven spilled its light
into darkness at the moment of creation, he had raged. He
had destroyed worlds, ravaged every attempt of the angels to
create a sanctuary for life in this dark universe. He had hated the
angels, who called themselves Fire Lords. He had believed then,
as the other demons believed, that the Fire Lords were insane to
sanction life in a cosmos of vacuum, where the light of origin
dimmed toward nothingness. And he would have continued
raging against all life had he not learned love from the woman
he once tried to rape — Optima, the saint whose womb had
received his demon energy and who, with the help of the
angels, had woven him his mortal body of uncertain age . . .

Time jarred once more into its natural rhythm as Syrax
hissed: 'Why are you sneaking about like an assassin?'

'Sneaking?' Merlin's smile revealed jagged teeth orange as
embers, and he gestured with his staff to the bustling dancers and
acrobats hurtling through the summer night. 'I walked direcdy
here to speak for our king.'

'Your king, wizard,' Severus Syrax snapped. 'Not ours.'

'I understand that you have an alliance with the Foederatus,

Syrax.' Merlin spoke in a cold voice, referring to the pagan
confederacy of Jutish, Pictish, Anglish and Saxon armies who
controlled the lowlands east and south of Londinium. 'So
perhaps Arthor is not your king. Perhaps you would rather
pay obeisance to King Wesc, commander of the Foederatus.'

'I have a trade agreement with the Foederatus,' Syrax replied
haughtily. 'But I am a Christian. I would never bend my knee to
a pagan.'

'Good. Y o u will have your chance to bend your knee to
your Christian king, then.' Merlin passed a slow gaze among
the three warlords. 'I understand your reluctance to accept

Arthor as your king, for he is young. And though he has
been tried in battle, his leadership remains untested. So, I
say this to you three British lords as I will say again to your

Celtic counterparts: Arthor's leadership will be tested, and he
will not be found wanting.'

'So you say, Merlin.' Severus Syrax glanced at the others for
support and saw that they watched the wizard with awestruck
solemnity, and he held his tongue.

'In the coming days,' Merlin continued, 'our king leaves for
the north to secure the most vulnerable border of our kingdom,
the territory between the Antonine and Hadrian walls. After
establishing his authority there, he will tour his entire domain
and seek pledges from every warlord and chieftain in the land.

Those who swear allegiance to him will earn a place in his court.

And those who do not—' Merlin's eyes narrowed. 'They will
be destroyed.'

King Arthor's Hangover

The music and laughter continued into the morning, but the
bright sunshine that lanced through the ranks of Irish yews
on the eastern slopes hurt King Arthor's eyes and inspired a
throbbing headache. He retreated into the citadel, seeking a
dark alcove among the workers' trestles and dangling loops of
hempen cables. Sword in hand, he curled into a damp corner
and pressed the cool blade against his aching brow.

Nausea swept through him in waves, and he chewed the
ermine fringe of his mande in physical anguish. 'Too much
wine,' he moaned to himself. 'Never, never again . . .'

Dizzy images of Merlin's scowling visage spun before him,
silently admonishing him for his foolish excess and then loudly
warning him that he must prove his worthiness to be king.

'You can not rule unless you first serve! Seek the pledges
of your warlords and chieftains by serving their needs. Tour
your kingdom - but not as a drunk! Use this first year wisely
or stand aside.'

The wizard's challenge whirled in him, echoing dimmer,
then louder. Out of that vortex rose the figure of a tall woman
with muscular shoulders, flame-wild hair, and small, tight, black
eyes in a moon face. 'Morgeu the Fey!' he gasped and shook his
head until the vision of the big-boned enchantress smeared into
the shadows.

'Ho! My lord!' Dagonet the dwarf called from among the
crowded workbenches. 'Where have you gone? Y o u are twithe
my thize and mutht dwink twithe what I have dwunk!'

Lord Monkey swung out of the dark on a cable and leaped
squawking onto Arthor's shoulder. With a fanged grin, the beast
thrust a rind of ripe cheese under the young king's nose.

Arthor swatted the monkey away, and it bounded into
the dark with an angry shriek. 'Leave me alone,' the king
groaned.

'Ah, but I have here a bladder of muthty Iberian vintage with
a peppery afterbite that will pinth your thinutheth!' The dwarf
strode from under a mason's scaffold with a wobbly pig's bladder
in his hand. 'Come, dwink! Today you are king! Tomorrow

- God help uth, tomorrow ith already upon uth! And you're
thtill king! Dwink!'

Arthor waved him away. 'Leave me, Dagonet. I am sick.'

'Thick? Not at all!' The dwarf swaggered closer. 'You are
king!' He unstoppered the bladder and wafted it under the king's
pallid face. 'Drink, thire, and give Lord Bacchuth example of
how a king revelth!'

The dwarf's leering face and the acrid stink of soured wine
disgusted Arthor, and he waved his sword threateningly. 'Be
gone, dwarf, or I swear . . .'

'Thwear by our Thavior'th toenailth if you mutht!' Sloshing
wine, Dagonet backed off. 'I thee clearly now, thire - Lord

Bacchuth' reign ith thafe from the callow liketh of you. I pway
for all of uth that you hold your thepter more firmly than your
wine. Lord Monkey and I depart. We will weturn anon, when
your head ith no longer too big for your cwown.'

Arthor groaned. He had never before imbibed so much
wine or danced so strenuously. He had been vehement in his
carousing, as if enough wine and merriment could counter the
abiding shame and oppressive doubts that squatted in his heart.

Incest! The word ached in him, too ugly to voice aloud and
more painful than his besotted headache. I have engendered an
incest-child! And I dare believe I could be king? The dwarf is right.

No crown belongs on my head.

He groped for his gold chaplet, found it missing, and
groaned for the justice of that. A wave of nausea swelled in
him, and he gnashed his teeth, trying to suppress the gorge
rising in his throat. With a gurgled cry, he vomited.

The King's Steward

Twisted with nausea, King Arthor lay in his vomit. His head
pulsed with pain, and his heart clopped desultorily in his chest,
heavy with despair.

'Get up.' A sharp voice struck him like a slap. 'We deserve
better for our king.'

Arthor felt a strong, gruff hand under his shoulder, lifting
him from the stench of his spew. When he rolled about, he
gazed up at a refined face, a visage with a high, balding brow,
long, thin nose with disdainfully arched nostrils, and a narrow,
hard mouth, almost lipless, above a dim, beardless chin. 'Who

— who are you?'

'I am the king's steward. Bedevere.' He produced a black
knuckle of dessicated woodmeat. 'Chew this. It's Saint Martin's

Wort. It will settle your stomach and clear your head.'

Before Arthor could object, Bedevere pushed the wort into
the boy's mouth, and it was then Arthor noticed that the man
had no right arm.

'Yes, a Hun has taken one of my arms.' Bedevere sat Arthor
upright and with a wet cloth began to clean the youth's face.

' N o w I must work twice as hard at everything. And my efforts
return twice the satisfaction.'

'Leave me, Bedevere.'

'Be quiet and chew. Chew vigorously. The wort needs
a good grinding. It's old. I carried it from the Holy Land
some years ago and am happy to say I've had no need of it

— till now.'

Y o u ' v e seen the birthplace of Our Lord?' Arthor mumbled
through the bitter taste of the wort.

'And the birthplaces of Zoroaster at Nineveh and Gautama

Siddhartha, the one called the Awakened, in the foothills of
the world's tallest mountains.' Bedevere removed the king's
sword from his hands. 'I served our holy father Pope Gelasius
as envoy to the courts of Persia, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and the
principalities of the Indus.'

The wort had begun to work, and Arthor felt well enough
to sit up straighter, his back against the soothing coolness of the
stone wall. He saw that Bedevere had with him a bucket of water
bobbing with cut limes. A bundle of fresh garments sat beside it
with the chaplet of gold laurel leaves atop it. 'Why are you here?'

he asked as the one-armed steward began to undress him. 'Why
are you in far-flung Britain, you who have seen the wonders of
the world? Why are you with me, here in this remote land?'

'You need me.' With an expert twist and snap of his one
arm, Bedevere carefully folded the king's soiled mande.

'How could you know that?'

'In truth, I did not - until I saw you playing the fool among
your subjects. A king with no dignity is no king at all.' With a
rough swipe of a wet rag, the steward cleaned Arthor's mouth
and chin. 'My former masters secured their realms not only by
force but with nobility. I helped until their reigns were stable.

But I am sworn to serve our Lord and Savior, and I go where
our faith is most challenged.' He wrung out the washrag, dipped
it in the lime water, and cleansed the king's hairless chest. 'This
frontier is where I belong now. And from what I've seen of you
this past night, I am convinced you need me. Am I wrong?'

'Leave me, Bedevere.' Arthor spat out the chewed wort
with a scowl of disgust. 'I am no king worthy of any attention
but God's wrath.'

Bedevere smiled thinly. 'You torment yourself because of
an indiscretion that you committed before you knew you
were king.'

Arthor stayed the steward's hand. 'You know about Morgeu?'

'No. But I know something of the heart's hungers.' Bedevere
freed his hand and continued bathing the king. 'Put your past
firmly behind you, young king. The hope of our people depends
on what you do now.'

'You know not of what you speak.' Arthor glared. 'I have
fathered a child by incest!'

Bedevere shrugged and used a brisde-brush to comb Arthor's
unruly hair. 'That is a terrible deed. But you did not commit it
knowingly.'

'How do you know?'

'I know men.' Bedevere unfolded a fresh white chemise
fretted with purple trim. 'You are young and so you are
passionate. But your hands are strong and callused with the
marks of one who has wielded a sword. Yet you bear no scars.

Y o u are not a clumsy or desperate fighter but a purposeful one.

Such a man does not risk his life for the Lord and then defy his

God by committing incest.'

Arthor stopped Bedevere from draping the chemise over
his head. 'What is this delicate blouse? I'll wear a tunic'

'You look enough like a brute.' Bedevere pulled at Arthor's
short-cropped brisdes. 'Your hair is too short. A king must
command brutes but must not appear a brute.'

'I'm not yet a king in my heart.'

'I know.' Bedevere squinted at him. Y o u were Lord

Kyner's iron hammer. He trained you to kill for him — and
to die for him. But now you are his king. Y o u are not a hammer
anymore, Arthor, but a wielder of hammers. Y o u must dress so
that others see you for the master that God has made you.'

Arthor allowed Bedevere to drape the chemise over his
head. 'Do you think I am worthy to be king — a man who
has fathered a child on his half-sister?'

'God alone can make such a judgement.' He helped Arthor
to his feet and placed the gold chaplet upon the lad's head. 'God
surely believes you are worthy, for you are king. Whether you
will remain worthy in His eyes now depends entirely on you.'

Mother Mary, I have ever prayed that I be far you the Son you lost. I
have asked you to give me the strength to defend Him now that He has
left us alone in the devil's world. I have petitioned you far the might
to fight far Him until He returns. But I never imagined — oh, Mother

Mary, Ineverever imagined I would truly be king. Is this God's blessing

- or a curse? I have not the spirit to be chieftain, let alone high king.

You must pray for me, Mother Mary. You must pray that God grant
me the grace to match the power he has placed in my hands.

Arthor and Morgeu

In the sanguinary darkness of a cedar grove, a tall, broad-
shouldered woman in regal scarlet raiment stood, hands clasped
over her womb. Her crinkled red hair flared about a moon-pale
and round face whose small black eyes gazed with dreamy
malevolence. 'Come to me now, my brother. I would speak
with you.'

King Arthor dismissed Bedevere, feeling he needed to be
alone with his thoughts. Sword in hand, he exited Camelot
through a servants' corridor and emerged into bright daylight
under a curtain wall that overpeered the mountain cleft of
the River Amnis. The citadel separated him from the emerald
downs where the revelers still sang and danced, and no one saw
him climb the rut-warped path that loggers used to bring timber
to the construction site. Even Merlin, absorbed in keeping peace
between the rival Celts and Britons, was unaware that his ward
had suddenly departed the festival grounds.

Morgeu found the king as he strolled with aching head
and heavy heart among the giant cedars that the Romans had
planted on these ridges three centuries earlier. 'Brother — at last
we meet again.'

Arthor startled alert and lifted his sword toward the scarlet
figure that approached from out of the huge forest.

'Put that sword down, child,' Morgeu spoke with a voice of
command that Arthor's muscles obeyed before his mind could
respond. 'Or do you hope to cancel your sin of incest with the
greater sin of murder?'

'Morgeu!' Arthor lowered Excalibur and staggered back a
pace.

'Close your mouth before a bird flies into it.' A scornful
smirk curled the corners of her long mouth. 'I've summoned
you here to make peace between us.'

'Summoned me?' Eyes narrowed, Arthor's hand tightened
on the hilt of his sword. 'Peace? Y o u — you deceived me!

Y o u made me believe you were another when you stirred
my affections.'

'I stirred far more than your affections, Arthor. "What a child
you are! And you would be king.' Morgeu laughed coldly. 'Yes,

I beckoned you here. Why are you so surprised? Don't you
know that your sister is an enchantress? I could call forth from
this wood a ferocious bear to unravel your bowels from your
belly if I chose. But I do not, for I have brought you here
to make peace. Yes, peace.' She folded her hands over her
abdomen. 'After all, you are the father of this child in my
womb.'

Deep lines creased his smooth brow. 'In the name of all
that is holy, why have you done this monstrous thing?'

Another laugh glittered from her. 'I did not do it alone,
brother. Your seed made it possible.'

'Given unwillingly.'

'Oh, you seemed most willing that night in the grass under
the stars.' She lifted her round face as if in happy recollection.

'It was all so very lovely - and passionate.'

'I thought you were someone else.'

Her smile slipped from her face. 'Appearances are not always
what they seem. A valuable first lesson for a king.' She stepped
closer, the dark bits of her eyes fixed firmly on him. 'Know this,
my brother. I will do all in my power to sustain you as monarch

- until our child reaches maturity. Then, you will stand aside for
our son and he will rule. That is the peace I offer.'

'Arthor!' Merlin's voice boomed among the great trees.

Arthor faced about to look for the wizard, and when he
turned back, Morgeu the Fey was gone.

Merlin Steals a Soul

Midnight-blue robes flapping, long staff striking the earth,

Merlin came striding through the gilded shadows of the giant
cedars. 'Arthor! Get back to Camelot — now!'

'Merlin—' Arthor hurried to the wizard's side. 'Morgeu
summoned me here! She

'Be silent!' Merlin's angry stare seemed to glow within the
shade of his wide-brimmed hat. 'I have sensed the enchantress.

That is why I am here. N o w go. Return to Camelot at once

— and do not for the life of you look back.'

Arthor obeyed and jogged downhill, past the behemoth
trees, to the logging road that returned to the fortress. Not
only did he not glance back, he began to pray for forgiveness
of his shameful sin and the hope that God would recall the soul
his misdirected passion had set in Morgeu's womb.

That, too, was Merlin's intent. But the wizard did not pray.

Instead, he raised his staff, a splinter from the World Tree given
him by the pale people of the hollow hills years before. Intoning
a demon chant, he called the soul of Arthor's child to him.

A shriek from beyond the wall of cedars located Morgeu
in her helpless flight from the wizard. Moments later, flying
among the trees and the pillars of sunlight, the soul came, a tiny
sun, smaller than a firefly, and trailing a shimmering comet tail
of bees. The firepoint alighted upon the tip of Merlin's staff,
and the bees hummed in a vibrant halo about it.

'Lailoken!' Morgeu screamed Merlin's demon name — but
to no avail. The wizard had no fear of her and had only
been waiting for this opportunity to abort the abomination
she carried. A grim, tight smile bent his Hps but no humor
showed in his long, silver eyes as he marched down the slope
of giants in the company of bees.

Morgeu staggered from her hiding place in a root cove
clutching her belly. She dared not run. She dared not extend
her enchanting spells. All her strength was required to hold
what was left of her child, the small twist of mortal clay now
almost lifeless in her womb. She lay down on the spongy forest
floor curled about her pain, teeth gnashing, sweatdrops glinting
on her squeezed face.

Merlin slowed his descent. He did not want Morgeu to
miscarry immediately. If she did, he would lose a precious
opportunity to control her. He would not drown this soul
or fling it free into the sky until he had gotten from Morgeu
all the cooperation he could wring from her with this tiny
lifespark.

Down the hillside, he watched Arthor loping, sword in
hand. The dwarf Dagonet and his monkey appeared as wee
figures under the massive fortress wall, waving for the king to
join them and return to the festivities. Merlin swung his staff
in a wide arc and pointed it at the ribald and his beast.

The soul shot out of the forest and down the grassy slopes
followed by a droning stream of bees. The next moment, the
monkey leaped from Dagonet's shoulder with a violated shriek
as the mote of soulfire struck its silver-furred face between its
large, liquid eyes and disappeared into its skull. Bees swarmed
angrily, hungry for the sweetness of the soul they could no
longer find, and the dwarf swept the monkey into his arms
and fled howling toward the pastures of celebrants.

Mother Mary, I am ashamed to kneel here before you — I who have
commited incest with my sister. I knew not that lust would deliver me
to Morgeu — but I knew lust. I gave myself to my carnal hunger. I gave
myself, and I was taken by an enchantress who serves the devil. Yet,

1 know — I know your Son wants me to forgive her. That is what He
died to teach us. But how can I forgive myself?

Festival's End

The elephants ate the mounds of uncooked vegetables in the
provision tents; then, foraging for more food, trampled the
garden crofts that had served the construction workers. The
cooks and bakers, whom Merlin had conscripted from Cold

Kitchen to prepare the feasts for the festival, returned to the
hamlet in protest. Since the last kegs of mead had already
been drained and only a few amphorae of wine remained,

Merlin decided to call a halt to the celebrations several days
earlier than planned. Besides, the warlords and chieftains were
eager to return to their realms and announce Arthor's claim as
high king.

Arthor himself had disappeared among the numerous unfin-
ished chambers of Camelot. Stunned by his confrontation with

Morgeu, he possessed little faith in himself as king. All his life,
he had believed he was despicable, a child born of violence and
pun. Now, he knew — his whole prior existence was a He. He
was indeed born of noble parentage. And yet . . .

The eye of a tempest watched him intently from his depths.

With calm certainty, he knew God's vengeance would rain
doom upon him for his heinous sin. The fact that he was the
parent of an unholy child left him numb and nearly mindless
with shock. A terrible storm is coming, he despaired. A terrible storm

. . . unless . . . unless this tempest calm I feel is not the watchful eye of God — but His absence!

From a garret window where a trowel and chisel waited on
the sill for the craftsman's return, he gazed out at the great gulfs
of blue above the blunt mountains. Was there indeed a paternal

God in heaven, as he had learned at Kyner's knee? Or was the
universe a battlefield of gods as he himself had witnessed in the
hollow hills? What of his beloved Mary, Mother of God? What
of the Savior who promised salvation from this fallen world?

Was all that as much a he as his past? And the truth, was it as
hideous as the fact of his firstborn snug now in the belly of his
mad sister?

'There you are, thire!' Dagonet waddled angrily into the
sawdust-strewn garret. 'That damnable wizard hath thtolen Lord

Monkey from me! I won't thtand for it! I am taking my mathter
back and leaving your thervith at oneth!'

'Dwarf, be gone!' Arthor pounded his fist against the stone
jamb of the window. 'I need to be alone.'

'And I need my mathter!' Dagonet protested. 'I need Lord

Monkey! Command Merlin to return him to me at oneth!'

Arthor turned from the window and glowered at the
dwarf.

'Are tearth in your eyeth?' With a squinted stare, Dagonet
tilted his head. 'You are crying, thire! Why? On thith your firtht
gloriouth day ath king, how can you weep?'

'I'm not crying.'

'Ah! Of courth not. Kingth don't cry.' Dagonet jumped
backward off his feet and sprang into a handstand. He walked
around on his hands till he faced the king upside down. 'I wath
looking awry at the world. Now I thee! Y o u are laughing.

Tearth of laughter! Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Y o u are king! At your
command, tearth become laughth, life becometh death! You
are the law!'

'Yes.' Arthor straightened. 'I am the law.' He put a tentative
hand to the gold chaplet on his head. 'If someone has done
wrong, I can punish them. I can make known the crime. I can
confess the sin to all and be free of it!' A stern expression aged
his youthful face. 'Come, Dagonet. Let us go take back what
is ours.'

The King's Authority

'Bring me Arthor,' Merlin demanded of Bedevere. The old
man handed a cherry to the monkey perched on his shoulder
under the wide brim of his hat, and beast and wizard stared
expectandy at the steward.

Bedevere sat on a carpenter's stool in the open courtyard
of the fortress, whittling a horse from a block of wood he had
secured in a vise. At the approach of the wizard, he stood.

'My lord Merlin, the king should not be disturbed. He requires
time alone.'

Merlin plucked the lithe figurine from the vise and turned
it nimbly in his long fingers, nodding appreciatively. 'You've a
good eye, Bedevere. No doubt you have assessed the needs of
our liege most accurately, but matters of state are not as patient
as this block of wood. Summon him at once.' The monkey spat
out the cherry stone as if to emphasize this command.

'My lord, he has had no time to himself since fate has placed
this great burden on him,' Bedevere protested. 'For all his batde
experience, he is but a boy. Give him some time to . . .'

'Thank you, Bedevere,' Arthor announced as he strode
down a stone stairway along the rampart wall, sword in hand
and Dagonet hopping after him. 'I've had enough time to gather
my wits.' He ducked under a block-and-tackle and went direcdy
to the wizard. 'Return the monkey to Dagonet.'

'Sire, I have reason to hold this beast close,' Merlin began
to explain, but the king's frown stopped him.

'Am I your sovereign master or not?' Arthor demanded.

'Obey me, Merlin, or end this ridiculous pretense.'

'Yeth,' the dwarf intoned imperiously. 'Obey your king and
return my mathter to me!'

ft'

'This is no pretense, my lord.' With a nod, Merlin sent the
monkey leaping from his shoulder to the dwarf s. 'But you must
learn to trust me. Worthy reason informs all that I do.'

'I trust you well enough, Merlin.' Arthor placed a kindly
hand on the wizard's forearm and felt the bony steel of it. 'You
saved my life in the hollow hills - and I have no doubt that by
your hand I have become king. Yet, if I am true and rightful
king, then my word is law. Is that not so?'

'To be used judiciously, sire. Judiciously.' Merlin motioned
to the tall, open portal of the courtyard. 'The festival is ended.

You must review the lords and their company as they depart.'

'Lord Monkey ith not thound!' Dagonet cried. 'What
thortheree have you worked upon my mathter, evil wizard?'

'The beast is startled yet by the bee attack of this morn,'

Merlin lied. In fact, the soul of Morgeu's child that he had
installed in the beast gazed forlornly from its dark eyes. 'Silence
your complaints, dwarf, and leave us to attend these pressing
matters of state.'

Farewell, Camelot

Cool as the carved visage of an ivory chess piece, King Arthor
sat on his cedar throne. To either side of his purple-canopied
reviewing stand, an elephant stood festooned in feathery sprays
and chains of flowers. This tableau impressed the gathered
troops, both Celtic and British, and they arrayed themselves
in military parade on the fairgrounds before the citadel.

'One year!' Merlin shouted to the massive gathering. 'One
year to this day, your king will sit here again before you! If
by then he has not won the pledges that are denied him this
day, he will step down.' The wizard looked to the king and
stepped aside.

Arthor spoke from where he sat, his voice big with deter-
mination. 'I am a Christian king. I will obey the teachings of
our Savior. And so, I will rule by serving. In the seasons of
the year before us, I will tour the dominions of my kingdom.

I will seek from you the pledges of fealty that I need to serve as
your king. One year from this day, I will sit here again, even as

Merlin says. Y o u have my word that unless I receive the pledges
of every warlord and chieftain, I will stand aside.'

Arthor intended to announce to the assembly the fact of

Morgeu's deceitful seduction and the unholy issue that she
carried, and his grim purpose lent him a foreboding aspect
that made him appear older than his years. Merlin read his
determination accurately and from behind the throne cast a
quieting spell so that the lad fell silent after giving his promise
to serve and sat nearly immobilized.

Disdainful of the young monarch's vow to serve, Severus

Syrax openly defied the new king by leading his soldiers and
entourage away from the reviewing stand. He rode with his
turbaned head averted from the throne, not even bothering to
have his horn-blowers sound a parting tantara or the standard-
bearers dip the flag of Londinium as they parted the range.

The small giant, Bors Bona, marched his huge warhorse
direcdy before the reviewing stand, Medusa-masked helmet
in hand. His boar's visage with its stubbly gray hair, sloped
brow and squat nose nodded once to the king, but he also
did not dip his banner or sound a salute. His armored legions
marched solemnly past and did not even glance at the boy-king,
their display of the warlord's strength meant to intimidate,
not honor.

Next came Marcus Dumnonii, blond and broad of shoulder
as a Saxon. He turned his white charger to face the king and
raised with one arm the chi-rho banner of the Christian batde
hordes, demonstrating for the sake of the pagan Celts that this
monarch shared the faith of the British. Yet, he did not dip
the flag or command his scores of horsemen and foot soldiers
in chain mail and bronze helmets to turn and salute.

Urien, his long salt-blond hair tied up in a topknot as
if ready for war, drove before the king in a batde chariot
braced with shields that displayed intricate Celtic knot-symbols.

Disdainful of the Christians, he refused even to glance at the
king, though his bare-chested warriors with their swords and
shields strapped to their backs gawked openly at the boy on
the throne. Their families stood up in the trundling wagons
to point and laugh at the child monarch glaring back helplessly
at them.

Then Lot, the old chief of the North Isles, approached
the reviewing stand with his two young sons, Gawain and

Gareth, garbed in Celtic battle attire. They wore gold tores
about their throats and sword-belts of red leather securing their
braccae, trousers of crushed leather. 'King Arthor, the warlords
of your own faith have shown you no respect,' the aged chieftain
declared. 'My brother-in-arms, Lord Urien, also offers you no
countenance, because you worship the nailed god. But I will
put such enmity aside — if you will receive me and my sons in
private audience.'

Lot's Warning

Merlin's enchantment held King Arthor nearly motionless in
his throne, until the wizard bent close and whispered in his
ear, 'What you say and do now before this chieftain of the old
order will cast the die of your new order. Heed me, Arthor. I
saved you from the Furor's wrath in the hollow hills. N o w trust
your fate to me again. If you are to survive as king, if you love
our Savior and His hope for this island kingdom, breathe not a
word to this elder warrior of your adultery with his wife.'

The wizard lifted his spell, and Arthor rose slowly from the
throne as though freed from ponderous chains. 'Lord Lot—'

He blinked at the archaic figure before him, attired in buckskin
leggings and boots, his chest bare but for the slanting sword
strap that secured his weapon to his muscular back. The fair,
long-haired boys dressed as warriors stood alertly at his side, their
child faces anxious to see how their father would be received by
this unlikely monarch.

Behind them, Lot's clan pressed close, warriors, women,
and children eager to hear every word spoken to their lord by
this boy-king of foreign faith. And beyond them, Kyner and

Cei and their wagons of Christian Celts — the only family he
had ever known — patiendy awaited their turn to honor their
native son.

'Lord Lot—' Arthor repeated more firmly, 'husband of
my sister, we should speak as brothers, no matter our dif-
ferences.'

Merlin sighed audibly with relief and received Excalibur
with both hands from the king. 'Remember,' he pitched a
whisper for Arthor's ears alone, 'not a word. Not a word or
all is lost.'

Arthor nodded grimly to the wizard, then leaped off the
platform to Lot's side. Lot's clan gasped with admiration at the
young king's gracious gesture. Arthor offered his right arm, and
the Celtic chieftain seized it and pulled the youth close to him.

'Come away from the demon Lailoken and speak with us in
private.'

They walked with arms locked through the gaping crowd
of Celts toward the mammoth pylon gates of Camelot, Gareth
and Gawain following. When they were out of earshot of the
assembly, Lot said, 'I have heard that you were cruel from
boyhood, a horrible son, a fierce bear of a boy. These past
three years you brought that cruelty to the battlefield against
the Saxons, where you were Kyner's iron hammer. Yet, Morgeu
tells me you are changed — changed utterly by your trespass of
the hollow hills.'

'I am changed,' Arthor acknowledged. 'The hollow hills
humbled me and now — this revelation of my noble birth-
right.'

'Are you changed enough to admit that your nailed god is
not a god of these islands?' Lot asked, pausing on the massive
slate causeway that entered Camelot. 'For I warn you, young

Arthor, unless you embrace the gods of our people, you will
never rule this kingdom.'

A Shirt of Fire

King Arthor's heart thrashed in his chest, offended that this
pagan dared challenge the faith that had sustained his sanity in
the hollow hills. 'Brother—' he began tighdy, but the words
would not come. Only angry thoughts rose toward his voice.

From out of the gateway of Camelot, a Fire Lord emerged.

Only the youngest, Gareth, saw the radiant being, who appeared
to him as an incredibly tall man with sunsmoke hair and starfire
eyes. The child pointed at the luminous man and, calling the
entity by its Celtic name, cried out, 'Look! A lord of the Annum-
has come!'

The Fire Lord placed a hand on Arthor's breast, and a
peacefulness like the soft blue of hyacinth pervaded him.

Lot and his eldest son, Gawain, saw the bright contact as a
sudden frantic profusion of light, as though Arthor wore a shirt
of fire. Then, the mystic flames vanished and ordinary summer
light glinted from Arthor's gold chaplet and the white fabric of
his chemise.

'The demon has put a spell on him!' Lot exclaimed fear-
fully.

'No, Da! I saw a lord of the Annum come to him from the
fortress,' Gareth insisted. 'The radiant lord put a hand on his
breast. It was no demon.'

Arthor's head pulled back, perplexed by the startled looks
of the three Celts. 'Brother — nephews — my heart holds no ill
for you. No demons hold me. I swear this by all that is holy.'

' Y o u are touched by the sacred fire of the Annum,' Lot spoke
somberly, glancing at his sons, who watched the king with open
mouths and eyes wide with awe. 'Like your mother then, you
are blessed by the invisibles. Yet, my warning still stands, Arthor.

Because you are my wife's half-brother and the son of my former
queen, I will stand by you in this fight. But I cannot speak for
the clans of the north. Though I am their chieftain, they are

Celts and free men all. Y o u will have to win their allegiance
yourself — and they will not be inclined to honor a boy-king
who worships the desert god of an alien people.'

'I respect your gods,' Arthor spoke softly, his heart peaceful
now as the interior of a blossom. 'I have seen the pale people
and the furious north god. That humbled me. But these entities
are tangible creatures - created beings. God is greater than they -
for He is uncreated, unformed, the Holy of Holies, who created
everything - the stars, the firmament, all creatures, all people,
and all the gods. This one and all-powerful God sent His only

Son into this strife-ridden world to teach us that love is mightier
than the sword. And by that love, I will rule these islands and
defeat our enemies.'

'I believe him, father,' Gareth whispered.

'Bah!' Lot made an ugly face. 'Don't preach to me, Arthor.

I have heard all this before from the wandering priests of the
nailed god. I don't believe a word of it. And if you would
but think for a moment, neither would you. When has love
ever defeated the sword? No batde has ever been won by love

— and what kingdom anywhere is held except by the sword?

You, Kyner's iron hammer, you know this is true.'

Arthor accepted this with a glum expression, then asked,

'What of Morgeu? What hope does she hold for me as king?'

'Your half-sister lies ill as we speak,' Lot said, his voice
tightening with worry. 'I warned her not to come to this
festival. She and the demon Lailoken have been mortal foes
since he cursed her father Gorlois and caused his death on the
battle plains outside Londinium. I fear the demon works his
evil against her.'

The Wizard and the Enchantress

While the king convened with Lot, Merlin left the reviewing
stand and made his way quickly to the caravan of Lord Lot. The
wizard chose a path that carried him through the construction
sites, among heaped quarry stones and stacked timber, so that
none observed his immediate progress. When he located the
tented wagon he sought, he spoke sleep to the Celtic guards
surrounding it and opened the back flap, exposing Morgeu the

Fey in her sick bed.

'Lailoken—' the enchantress moaned, too weak to cry out.

'Be still, Morgeu,' Merlin spoke in a soothing tone as he
entered the wagon and closed the cloth covering behind him.

'I have not come to harm but to heal.'

She waved him away, her small, black eyes wide with
fright.

'I have taken the soul of your child,' he reminded her in an
almost kindly voice. 'But I do not wish to take your soul as well.

I have come to see that you live.' He touched her with the tip
of his staff, and life-force flowed gendy into her drained body.

'Calm yourself, and soon you will be strong once more.'

'Why?' she gasped. 'Why do you keep me alive?'

'You know, Morgeu.' He removed his staff and placed a
cool hand on her warm brow. 'I am the king's servant now as
once I was your mother's. Arthor needs your help.'

'My baby,' she muttered. 'Return the soul of my baby.'

'That cannot be, Morgeu.' Merlin shook his head forbiddingly.

'There will be no incest child to damn the reign of our king.'

Morgeu struggled to push herself upright on her elbows.

'You have slain my child?'

'I am the son of Saint Optima,' Merlin replied dourly. 'I do
not slay unborn babies. But neither will I permit this incest child
to enter this world.'

'What are you going to do?'

'The soul will be returned whence it came.' The wizard
thudded his staff against the floor of the wagon. 'To the
hollow hills, to frolic again in the Happy Woods with other

Celtic souls.'

Morgeu flopped backward and lay staring feverishly at the
cloth ceiling painted in Gaelic abstractions. ' Y o u doom me to
deliver a stillborn. Y o u might as well drown the soul and kill
this baby at once.'

'I told you, I do not kill babies, born or unborn.' Merlin
backed away. 'I have given you enough strength to live. What
you do with the soulless thing you carry is for you to decide.

Apt punishment for an incestuous adultress.'

'Lailoken!' Morgeu shrieked in despair. 'Kill me now! If
you do not, I will surely take my vengeance on you.'

'I think not.' Merlin backed out of the wagon. 'No other
soul will fit the cloth of flesh you are weaving in your womb.

And as for attacking me and mine — remember, Morgeu, I was
once a demon. I know better than to misjudge evil.'

The Hollow Hills

Lord Monkey leaped from Dagonet's shoulder where he stood
on the reviewing stand, watching the Celtic chieftains, Lot
and Kyner, discussing the order of march for their combined
caravans. The animal darted across the broad slopes of the
playing fields toward the forested hills.

'Mathter!' Dagonet called in alarm and leaped from the
platform. He ran with all his might over the champaign, his
fleecy red hair unfurling behind. Ahead, he spied the dark,
gaunt figure of Merlin standing under the wall of the forest.

The wizard bowed and the running monkey leaped upon his
back. 'Ho! Thtop! Weturn my monkey! Thtop!'

By the time the dwarf reached the edge of the wood, Merlin
and Lord Monkey had disappeared. In the twittering of light
through the branches, he saw no trace of their passage, and he
stamped his feet and cried, 'Mathter, come back!'

But Merlin and the monkey had already retreated far from
the sounds of this world. They had fled along avenues of the
forest that exited Middle Earth and descended among the roots
of the World Tree, the Storm Tree, the Cosmic Tree that the
north tribes called Yggdrasil. In this realm, the world above
appeared as a slow twilight, a mountain of smoke climbing
from purple to smoldering scarlet.

Shooting stars guided the way through the nocturnal dis-
tances. These were faeries, tiny glow-worm bodies in night-
gowns of fog and sticky halos. They flittered like fireflies, leading

Merlin ever deeper into the incandescent dark.

In the gloom, Lord Monkey's face changed. It assumed
the aspect of the soul that it carried. The wizard immediately
recognized the goat-eyes and bulldog's jowls of Morgeu's own
father — the deceased Duke of the Saxon Coast, Gorlois,
misguided to his death by Arthor's father, Uther Pendragon!

'Where are you taking me, demon?' The outraged duke
glared from under brisdy simian brows. 'Why am I here
with you?'

'I should have known,' Merlin spoke with audible surprise.

'Of course, you would be the soul that Morgeu summoned from
the underworld! Ha! What sweet revenge she would have tasted
to place you on the throne of Britain.'

'What are you ranting about, old coot?' The monkey with
the astral aspect of Duke Gorlois gazed about angrily at the twilit
shadows. 'Where are we?'

'On our way to hell, Gorlois.'

The monkey tried to leap from Merlin's back, but the wizard
caught it by the scruff of its neck. ' Y o u do not want to run free
in this wild place, I assure you.'

'What evil is this?' Gorlois groused. 'What spell have you
worked on me? Where is my horse? What has become of my
men? Release me, demon! I am in the midst of a battle for

Londinium.'

'Oh, that battle is long years past, Gorlois.' Merlin held
the monkey before him and grinned with one side of his
mouth. 'Don't you remember? That was the battle in which
you died.'

Mother Mary, to the north I must go to prove myself worthy of the title
that God has granted me by right of birth and the magic of Merlin. I
pray to you now for insight, for wisdom, that I may understand the
counsel of this wizard whom you have placed at my side. Surely, he
is your servant as am I, for he, who once was a demon, came to be
a man by the intercession of the Holy Spirit and a good woman,

Saint Optima. Help me to trust him, Mother Mary — for I fear
him. He looks so — so frightful, with his long-skulled head, his
face of sharp angles, and those eyes, those deep pits of silver. He
does not appear wholesome. And yet, I know I would not be king
without him.

The Furor

Morgeu struggled out of her wagon and found her guards asleep
and butterflies flitting around their heads. The life-force that

Merlin had imparted to her was sufficient for her to stand and
walk. Using that strength, she stepped over her slumbering
soldiers and shuffled among the wagons of the caravan to
the edge of the encampment. The forest began there, and at
her chanted cries, toads appeared from the vetch to mark the
wizard's footfalls as he fled among the trees.

The enchantress had not the strength to pursue the wizard,
and she knelt in a forest space silted with darkness and called
to the god who most loathed Lailoken: 'Furor!'

The shadow world of things darkened. The sun's dust sifting
through the leaves of the forest blew away before a dark wind,
and the tread of the one-eyed god thudded across the sky like
thunder.

'Come to me!' she beckoned, though she knew that the

Furor would not descend at her whim, not to this gloomy world
so far below the glory of his home among the northern lights.

'Lailoken has stolen my father's soul from my womb. Give me
strength to marry my will to yours. Give me strength to hurt
those Lailoken loves . . .'

Cold nails of rain pierced the forest. Seen through the
narrow windows of the wood, the page of the horizon fluttered,
turning toward night, though day was not yet over. Lightning
ran across the sooty sky.

'Furor, make me strong,' Morgeu continued chanting, her
crinkled red hair darkening in the rain and matting her brow
like coagulated blood. 'Use me to lash out at the people who
keep these western isles from you. Use me for your ceremony
of murder!'

The seeping rain soaked her with energy. The leaves of the
forest trembled under the strength downpouring from the north
god into her frail body. Soon, she was on her feet and dancing
with exultation, filled with sky power.

Her guards, awakened by the sudden rain, found her leaping
and shouting insanely. It took three of them to subdue her
sufficiendy to guide her out of the forest and back to the
caravan. Eager for their lapse not to be known to Lot, the
guards summoned Morgeu's maids to strip her of her wet
garments while they built a sturdy fire.

By the time Lot came to visit her, she sat dry in her wagon,
a strange smile on her face. 'Husband, leave this cursed place.

Lead our people north, back to our homelands.'

'I will do that,' Lot agreed. 'I have come to tell you that
your half-brother and those Christian Celts he calls kith among

Kyner's clan will be traveling with us.'

She nodded avidly. 'Good, good!'

'Good?' Lot looked baffled. 'I thought I would hear argu-
ment from you protesting any alliance with Arthor and his
people.'

Morgeu's strange smile deepened. 'Why does the stream
laugh, husband?' She did not wait for him to voice his puzzle-
ment. 'Because it knows its way home to the sea.'

Storm Riders

Morgeu said no more. She knew that her prayer, like the stream
finding its way to the sea, had found its way to the upper world
and been heard by the wrathful one-eyed god. She could feel
his power turning in her. On the journey north, she would use
that magical strength to make Lailoken pay most dearly for his
theft of her father's soul.

The rains began gendy and did not impede the departure
of the caravan from Camelot. Though Merlin was nowhere to
be found, Arthor knew what he had to do. He did not require
the wizard to instruct him in the necessities of war. If he was
to serve Britain as king, he understood that he had to secure the
north, the one direction from which his enemies could attack
over land.

Lot, chieftain of the north, took the point; Kyner and his

Christian Celts followed, and the king rode in the middle
with his elaborate retinue of elephants and carnival wagons.

The summer rains seemed refreshing at first. But by the second
day, the old and ill-repaired Roman highways began to puddle,
and progress slowed.

This was the opportunity for which Morgeu had waited.

From within her wagon, she called upon the Furor to strike —
and out of the fog-soaked forests his minions attacked. A Jutish
warband descended howling and swinging battleaxes, savaging
the Christians at the end of the long procession.

Kyner's horse-soldiers fended the assault with difficulty, for
the Jutes advanced with the stormfront. Lightning and driving
rain disoriented the horses, and the attackers hacked at them
with their axes. Riders fell under the flashing blades, and
thunder carried away their cries. Many of the fierce warband
slipped past the Celtic defenders to assail the wagons, and the
shrieks of women and children joined the terrified screams of
the horses.

Arthor charged through the sheets of rain, Excalibur spin-
ning, intent on protecting the people of his clan. But by the time
he reached the site of the attack and beheld the disemboweled
hones with their entrails glistening in the downpour and the
overturned wagons and the strewn bodies of unarmed Chris-
tians, the Jutes were gone. He glimpsed their shadows vanishing
in the rainsmoke of the forest, and he rushed after them.

Kyner, Cei, and Bedevere followed and found their king
shoving through dense and sodden undergrowth, shouting
curses at the Jutes. No sign of the enemy remained in the
dark forest, and Arthor returned with the others to bury
their dead.

'Ill luck,' Kyner allowed after the funeral services. But the
next day, as the rains continued, another attack ensued. Again,
the Jutes arrived guided by Morgeu's magical bond with the

Furor, seizing that brief opportunity when the watchful Celtic
outriders returned for replacements. In this way, the Jutes eluded
the caravan's scouts. As if by chance, the rain thickened with
their advance and they descended from the forest with the brunt
of the storm.

Amidst a tumult of hghtning and thunder that dismayed the
defenders' mounts, the Jutes hacked at chargers and dray mares
alike. Wagons rocked and overturned, and the berserk storm
riders set upon the families that spilled out, hacking off the
heads of children and adults alike and stabbing at everything
that moved in the mud.

Someone Knows the Truth

Dagonet wandered helplessly through the forest of eternal
twilight, shouting, 'Mathter! Come back!' His cries vanished
without echo, fleeing from him through the trees to the bottom
of the sky, where a river of fire crawled.

Merlin heard Dagonet's despair, but he made no effort to
return for him. His mission in the underworld was more
important than the imperiled sanity of a dwarf. The wizard
held Lord Monkey firmly in one hand and his staff in the other
and advanced into the incendiary night.

Gorlois's soul had grown silent, despondent to find himself
in a monkey's body among the illusory shadows and dream
flames of the netherworld. Vaguely, he began to remember his
death, and he knew that what awaited him offered little hope
of salvation.

Ahead, the flame-woven horizon rose into an incandescent
palace of bunsen-blue pillars and fireball domes. Merlin paused
to remove his conical hat in deference to the andered god
who dwelled here, Someone Knows the Truth. He muttered
a small prayer to his mother, Saint Optima, and advanced with
bold strides.

'Majesty!' he called and dropped to one knee.

A giant figure of a man with the head of an elk emerged
from a blazing wall of the palace. 'What are you doing here
again, Lailoken?' a voice of booming surf asked. 'I've seen
more of your ugly Christian face than I have of most of my
worshipers.'

'Majesty, I have brought you a soul to dance to the Piper's
music in the Happy Woods.' Merlin held up the squirming
monkey.

The elk face bent closer, sniffed, then retracted with a loud
snort of disgust. 'That is a Christian soul!'

'Not any Christian soul — but Gorlois, the cruel Roman the
druids forced upon your priestess Ygrane . . .'

'Ygrane is no more my priestess!' Someone Knows the

Truth flared his nostrils with rage. 'She serves the nailed
god now.'

'True, but once she served you,' Merlin said with all the
deference he could muster. 'And her son Arthor . . .'

'Say no more to me of Arthor.' The elk king's brow creased
angrily. 'I gave to dwell inside him the soul of my best warrior,

Cuchulain. I'll do no more for him — another Christian] I'm
sick of these self-flagellating hypocrites of love who kill all who
refuse their gory faith. These are the very ones who mock my
horns and my hooves and brand me a devil!'

'My lord! I mean no offense

'Then, be gone!' the ancient god shouted, and the blast of
his voice sent Merlin tumbling backward in a gust of cinders,
the palace shaped like fire dwindling to darkness.

Mother Mary, where is Merlin? I need him now to counter the evil of

Morgeu. I am certain that her magic guides our enemies into our midst
with such lethal accuracy. More than chance is at play here. This is that wicked woman's doing. I know it. And now Ifeel murder in my heart
toward her. I thought I could forgive her for using my lust against me.

But now, those I am sworn to protect — they die because of her magic.

Return Merlin to me that I may have his magic to counter her iniquity.

Return Merlin or I know I will resort to the sword. God forgive me!

Breaking Magic

After the third assault by the storm riders, Kyner suspected that
magic worked against them. 'Where is that damnable Merlin
when we need him?' The chieftain lifted the bronze face mask
of his rawhide helmet, revealing his enraged scowl, and shook
his sturdy Bulgar saber at the slate-gray sky. 'That demon has
abandoned us!'

King Arthor dismounted in the rain among the sprawled
bodies of the dead. He knew each of the slain by name, for
he had grown up among them in White Thorn. 'The Jutes
know precisely when to attack,' he mumbled, removing his
eagle-mask helmet and forcing himself to gaze upon the hacked
corpses of his kith who had died under his protection. 'Someone
among us is signaling them. And there is only one here who has
the magical skill to time these assaults with the storm surges.'

Bedevere seized the king's arm as he moved to withdraw

Excalibur from its makeshift sheath of fawnskin and horsehair.

'Stay your hand, sire.' He lifted the vizard of his plumed helmet,
the better to hold the king with his calm, blue gaze. 'You must
act judiciously.'

'That word again!' Arthor's upper lip pulled back to reveal
his incisors. 'Merlin used that word before he spelled me to
silence at the festival gathering. If not for that spell, all now
would know of Morgeu's evil . . .'

'Hush, my lord!' Bedevere pressed close to the king. 'Our
alliance with Lot is uncertain as it is. Be politic. Be a king.'

'No more of my kith will die by her enchantments!' Arthor
swore angrily.

'Many more indeed will die if Lot abandons us here. Look
about you!' Bedevere swung his one arm across a mordant vista
of forested hills veiled in rain. 'We are far from Camelot.'

'Then what am I to do, Bedevere?'

'Be a king, my lord.' The steward took Arthor's arm and led
him away so that Cei, who had already gathered a burial detail of
priests and soldiers, could attend to the dead. 'Employ your wits
and your.faith. If you suspect Morgeu, then place her wagon in
the midst of Kyner's column. And pray. God has chosen you to
lead us. Beseech His help, and surely He will hear you.'

King Arthor did as his steward suggested, overriding Lot's
protests and placing Morgeu in an unmarked wagon among

Kyner's cavalcade. That did not deter the next assault, which
came again under a rage of thunderheads and wild hghtning.

But this time, instead of charging to defend Kyner's train, Arthor
lifted Excalibur's hilt upward, a symbol of his faith, and implored

God's help in breaking the magic that guided his enemies.

For the first time in days, daggers of sunlight stabbed through
the lowering clouds. The warband of Jutes, deprived of their
storm cover, scattered in disarray, and Kyner and Cei led their
cavalry among the fleeing enemy, sparing none.

The Singing Flower

Dagonet found Merlin unconscious in the crotched crevice of
a tree, his conical hat cocked askew and his staff shattered to
splinters. Lord Monkey sprawled limply atop him, and the dwarf
gasped at the sight of his beloved animal limp as death.

'Mathter! Oh my mathter! What hath become of you?'

Knocked free of the monkey by the blast of rage from

Someone Knows the Truth, Gorlois's soul, giddy with the
merriment of his disembodied state and the songful magic of
faerieland, alighted upon a yellow jonquil and in his freedom
began to sing:

Strange to be anywhere!

Oh, strange to be anywhere
when we understand our shadows
all our life before us goes
free of fear and doubt and care,
oh free to go just anywhere!

Dagonet looked about at the forest that sieved a sky of ashes
and western light — and among the magenta shadows spotted
the source of the singing. The happy song came from a delicate,
citrine flower that sprouted among the leaf litter. He knelt
beside it and wailed, 'Witde flowah, witde flowah — can you
help me? I am lotht in thith foretht dark - and my mathter
ith dead!'

The jonquil continued to sing its joyous song, and Dagonet
heard such hope in its blissful voice that he felt certain the fragile
blossom could help him. His thick fingers dug at the loamy earth
around the flower and lifted it, roots and all, from the ground.

He carried it to where Lord Monkey and Merlin lay propped
in the tines of the slender tree upon which they had landed.

'Lithen, mathter! Lithen to the happy song and wake.'

The joy of the song crowded time aside. Faeries lured by the
singing flitted in the cinnabar air. Distracted by them, Dagonet
stumbled upon the tree's roots that bulged moss-slick from the
ground and dropped the flower. Its rhizoid dirt, yellow petals,
and bright pollen splashed over himself and the unconscious
bodies embraced by the tree.

Dagonet sneezed and fell backward, thudding to the ground.

The singing stopped, and the faeries scattered. When the dwarf
sat up, Merlin gazed out from behind Dagonet's freckle-
splattered face. 'What hath happened to me?' he groaned,
holding his fleecy head in both stubby hands. 'I don't belong
in thith body!'

'Because I have displaced you, demon!' Merlin's body
climbed down from the tree, grinning so wide his molars
gleamed in the twilight. 'My soul has taken your place!'

'Dagonet?' Merlin asked, staggering upright.

The monkey rushed into Merlin's arms and hugged him
fiercely.

'Dagonet ith in the monkey!' he realized and gaped in
horror at the image of himself standing above him. 'And so,
you are—'

'Gorlois!'

Wheel of Night

Gawain and Gareth sat with their mother beside a fire reduced
to ash and purple embers. Dawn was an hour away, and the
great wheel of night turned slowly on its vast axle, carrying
darkness and its flotsam of stars away from the gray prophecy
of morning. Birdnoise glinted in the dark trees, accompanied
by the clink of harnesses from among the cropping horses.

All night, the boys had sat listening to their mother's stories
of magic and gods. As the stars dimmed in the accruing light,
they told her of the shirt of fire that King Arthor had displayed
before them and their father in the portal of Camelot. 'Da says
that the cold fire we saw was the wizard Merlin's magic, meant
to befuddle us,' Gawain said.

'But I saw a lord of the Annum, mother,' Gareth insisted.

'He was two heads taller than any man and with hair and eyes
so bright, I could not see his face for the glare.'

'The lords of the Annum taught us the runes, long ago, when
our people ranged across the known world to the very borders of

Persia,' Morgeu told her sons. 'Long before the nailed god, that
was. Centuries before, when our gods, Old Elk Head and the
pale people, walked among us. We honored the Annum lords
then in our bards' songs. But now these Lords of Fire champion
the nailed god, the anointed one of the desert people. And our
gods are exiled underground, in the hollow hills.'

'Is Uncle Arthor a bad man?' Gareth asked. 'The Lord of

Fire touched him on his heart.'

'Your uncle is a troubled young man, my sons.' Morgeu
passed a hand over the cooling embers, and live flames leaped
from the ash. 'The Annum lords hope to control him and all our
destinies. But we have recourse to older gods and more ancient
magic - as I have shown you in my stories. Our tradition is older
than Rome. Why should we worship a gruesome god who slays
his only son — a son who preached peace and love? No. That
way lies treachery and madness — for any parent who slays his
own is a traitor to life.'

'Then why does Da ride with Uncle and Lord Kyner, who
worship the nailed god?' Gawain inquired, his child face shining
in the fire's jigging light.

'Politics.' She smiled at her children with benign sadness.

'Until we can strike an accord with the invading tribes, we
need Uncle and Lord Kyner and all their Christian soldiers
to fend off the invaders. But some day, I believe, we will
have a Celtic king on the throne, and he will make peace
with the north tribes and restore our gods to their rightful
place in the World Tree. Then, there will be trade and
sharing, instead of killing.' Her smile brightened. 'Perhaps
one of you boys will be that king. And for that, you will
need heart. That is why I tell you my stories of the old
heroes, who battled dragons and fought giants and succeeded
because they had largeness of heart.' She gestured at the stars
kindling in the dark. 'Our world seems big, but it is really
very small indeed, just one mote among the froth of stars.

Believe me, my sons — this world is tiny. It is the heart that
is enormous.'

Mother Mary, Merlin has abandoned us. Or perhaps God has called
him to other service. My trial approaches. Perhaps the wizard is wise
to insist I face the northern clans on my own and win their fealty by
merit and not magic. But know that I am scared and seek mercy
for me from your Son and our Father. I have never seen such
rough country — mountain ledges at the threshold of heaven and
wild gorges like shafts to hell! Am I man enough to be king of this
bold land?

The Dolorous Wood

With mahouts to guide them, King Arthor and his stepbrother

Cei rode one elephant and Lot and his sons, Gawain and Gareth,
rode the other up low hills of scrub evergreen to a summit of,
high parkland that offered a vista of the north. Deer scattered
before them, and a lumbering bear paused in its foraging to
gaze at them from under the eaves of a primeval forest.

'There is the Dolorous Wood, young king,' Lot intoned
grimly, pointing to the bunched horizons of forest that climbed
toward mountains misted blue with distance. The vast expanse
of gorges, fens, and hollows masked many a fraudulent reckon-
ing with ancient groves that sprouted direcdy from sheer stone
walls and that crowded the adamantine depths of interlocked
canyons. The maze-like contours of the cliffs allowed only the
most acute sunlight to penetrate the pits beneath these high
mesas. Jammed together by the ice flows of prehistoric time,
the sandstone ledges that reared above the dark, satanic ravines
meandered in a giant whorl. 'The Spiral Casde. That's what the
clans here call the heights above these chasms. No enemy can
penetrate them.'

'Is this where you reign, Brother Lot?' Arthor asked in a
voice soft with awe before this strange incongruence of wooded
heights and fenland depths.

'No, Uncle!' Gawain laughed at the king's erroneous
assumption. 'This is wild country. Men lose themselves forever
down there.'

'But it's here you'll have to prove yourself if you hope
to rule the clans of the north,' Lot added. 'Only the most
adroit horseman can negotiate those treacherous trails - and
only a horseman can hope to rout the brigands that hide in
those forlorn holms.'

'Routing brigands, is it?' Cei piped up, intrigued. 'That's
how Arthor and I grew up in the hills of Cymru. Saxon rovers
infiltrated the hills and dells each spring, and from the time we
were the age of your boys father took us with him to clear
them out. Yea, Arthor?'

'Yea, Cei, we saw first blood on those forays,' Arthor
recalled. 'But the dells of Cymru are veritable fladands compared
to what lies here before us!'

'That is your challenge, Arthor — if you still wish to call
yourself king of the clans of the north.' Lot's gray eyes shone
like smoldering ash. 'Take your elephants, boy, and ride back
to Camelot. That's my counsel to you.'

Arthor responded coolly, 'Take me to the clan chiefs. I
won't leave here without their pledges.'

Lot shook his head ruefully. 'Then your bones will rest here
until your Christian reckoning gathers them for judgement by
your harsh God.'

Kingdom Made of Twilight

Gorlois kicked at the leaf duff and flexed his arms, amazed to find
himself inside Merlin's body. He removed his hat and ran giddy
fingers over his head, feeling the wispy hair and the dented skull
beneath. A laugh like a crow's caw jumped from him. 'Behold
this man! I can laugh! I can dance!' His blue-leather sandals
winked from under his midnight robes as he executed a deft
jig, flapping his hat over his head.

Merlin gazed down forlornly at the squat body of the
dwarf that he now occupied and plucked at his stained and
sour-smelling jerkin of cracked leather. Lord Monkey mewled
in his lap, Dagonet trapped in its small, round skull.

In despair, Merlin cast the monkey aside, leaped to his feet,
and ran to retrieve the remnants of the broken jonquil that had
sung with Gorlois's soul. Before his stubby legs could carry him
the distance, a strong hand seized him by the back of his jerkin
and lifted him into the air.

'Let me help you, little man.' Gorlois croaked with more
laughter. 'You want this flower, don't you?' With his free hand,

Gorlois snatched the shattered jonquil and dangled it just out
of reach of the dwarf s arms. 'This miracle flower that turned
you to me and me to you and the dwarf to — that.' He wagged
the plant at the monkey and shook the last of its petals from
its stem. Then, he crushed what remained in his fist. 'Thank
you, miracle flower. N o w your work is done.' He dropped the
mashed roots and stem to the ground and pounded them into
the earth with his heel. 'There! Now that bloom is gone. And
we are what we are!' His laughter nearly choked him.

'Gorlois, you fool!' Merlin shouted. 'What you are doing
defyeth heaven! No good can come of thith.'

'No good for you!' Tears of mirth ran from the dragon
sockets of Gorlois's face down the long ravines of his cheeks.

' N o w let us depart this gloomy place and return to the world
of the living, where I belong!'

'We'll do no thuch thing.' Merlin squirmed in Gorlois's
grasp, his short legs running futilely in the air. 'Let me down.'

Gorlois glanced about at the sullen trees silhouetted against
the sky's sunset tinctures. 'Which way do we go?'

'I'll not tell you.' Merlin shook his fist defiandy. 'You're in
the hollow hillth - the kingdom made of twilight - and here
you'll thtay until your thoul giveth back my body.'

'Don't you dare disobey me, Lailoken!' Gorlois shook

Merlin to a blur. 'I'll smash your head like a melon and send
your soul to dance in the Happy Woods!'

Dagonet, wearing his beloved monkey's body, leaped onto

Gorlois's arm and bit his wrist. With a shriek of pain, the
duke dropped Merlin and swatted at the monkey. But the
animal had already bounded off — and so had the dwarf,
both disappearing into the tangled underbrush, leaving Gorlois
clutching his wounded wrist and bellowing curses.

Balm in Gilead

King Arthor and his retinue arrived with loud fanfare at the

Spiral Casde. Elephants trumpeting, pipers, drummers, horn-
blowers making joyous noise, tumblers leaping hoops, jugglers
catching spinning swords, the caravan entered the stockaded
ward of the fortress to the cheers of the northern clans. The

Spiral Casde itself was the contorted landscape, wide as the
horizon, and the only way in, apart from scaling the cliff walls,
was through the wooden palisade that had been thrown open
at Arthor's approach.

Lot lead the way on his sturdy battle-horse with his sons
at his side, and the occupants of the fortress bent their knees
as he passed, then stood again to point at the boy-king and
his elephants and performers. To Arthor, these people of the
north appeared as denizens of an archaic time, for they dressed
in the old-fashioned kirtles and tunics that had been popular
two centuries and more ago, when the Romans held these
lands. Even their hairstyles — skullshorn for the men and tiered
in ringlets for the women — was remindful of the old Romans.

And yet, these clans were Celtic - devotees of the old gods.

'Pagans!' Kyner called them, and he and Cei immediately
began preaching the good news of the Savior, unfurling their
chi-rho banners and shouting from their horsebacks, 'We bring
you balm from Gilead to heal the wounds of your souls!'

Aidan, the chieftain of the Spiral Casde, emerged from his
timber mead hall with his wife, young son, and daughters and
paid obeisance to Lord Lot, offering a bronze sword of ancient
lineage, a cloak of wolf fur, and two hunting mastiffs. Lot
accepted graciously, speaking in Gaelic, and slipping into Latin
when he introduced the young king. 'Aquila Regalis Thor has
come to win your pledge and your promise to hold the Spiral

Casde against the Picts.'

'You arrive in good time, Aquila Regalis Thor,' Aidan
spoke in fluent Latin. Tall, ruddy, with a smashed nose and
one severed ear, he wore hoops of leather around his torso,
joined by similar hoops passing over his shoulders, the lorica of
an old Roman soldier. 'A warband of Picts led by the ferocious
wayfarer Guthlac has dared scale the northern walls of my citadel
and hides now somewhere in its maze. He offers good terms of
alliance with his vast army to the north — if I will open these
gates to him.'

'I will offer you better terms, Aidan,' Arthor promised at
once. 'I have viewed your Spiral Casde, and though small bands
of brigands may sneak into it, no army could hope to overrun it

— if you are willing to defend its walls.'

Before Aidan could reply, a loud commotion from beyond
the imposing elephants interrupted him. Bedevere stepped close
to the king, saying, 'It's your stepfather, sire. He has riled up the
people by calling them pagans. They know Latin well enough
to understand he has called them "worshipers of false gods."'

Aidan glared at Arthor. 'Have you come to seek alliance —
or to foist your nailed god upon us?'

Mother Mary, thank you, your Son, and God our Father for sending
me Bedevere. Even when I don't see him, I know he is there, watching
my back, protecting me from assassins. My Da — your Son's servant,

Kyner — he means well, bringing the good news to the north clans.

But their hearts are hardened against our Savior, and Kyner and my
brother Cei are not the most patient messengers of the Lord's word.

They have incited anger among many of these fierce people. If not for

Bedevere, I would fear for my life, because my talks with chief Aidan
are all-consuming and I cannot always be looking over my shoulder.

Aidan hopes to inflame me with harsh rhetoric even as he plies me with
fine foods and wine. But I am obedient to your Son's teachings and ever
turn the other cheek. These proud people are frankly amazed — and
perhaps disappointed - that I take no offense from their insults. Now if
only Bedevere could protect me from Morgeu. She is in her element in
this wild north country, and I fear what she is about. Where is Merlin,

Mother Mary? Where is my wizard?

Under the Moon's Paw

King Arthor spent the entire day in negotiations with Aidan, and
into the night he was still trying to assuage the offended vanity of
the clan chief. Lot sat with them in the mead hall, enjoying with
his sons the Celtic hospitality of their host, savoring platters of
meat in fruit sauces, bowls of whortleberry pudding, and baskets
of honey apple dumplings, all washed down with ale and cider.

Left to her own devices, Morgeu departed the stockade
unobserved through a servant's entrance. The people were
distracted by the parading elephants, the dancing bears, and
the oudandish performers, who proudly displayed their skills
accompanied by the passionate music of the king's musicians.

More solicitously than before, Kyner and his towering son

Cei moved among the amused clansfolk and preached their
good news.

Morgeu left the fortress, because she felt a blood-tug in her
womb - as if the soul that had been stolen from her unborn
caUed to her. Under the moon's paw, she found her way to a
birch grove. Merlin's phantom awaited among the pale boles,
beckoning her closer.

'Begone to your Christian hell, demon!' Morgeu cursed
when she recognized the ghost and turned to go.

'Daughter, wait!' Gorlois cried. 'I am not the demon

Lailoken. I am your father — Gorlois.'

'Wfiat evil is this you hope to work on me, Merlin?' Morgeu
spat angrily. ' Y o u cannot deceive me. I see what you are.'

'Morgeu, I am not what I seem.' Gorlois reached for her,
and she backed away. 'The demon carried my soul into the
underworld. The elk-headed god cast him out - and our souls
were knocked free and fell into different bodies. Lailoken is
now inside a dwarf. And I - I am here, in his body. But I am
lost in this nether realm. I have been calling for you to help
me. And now you have come.'

Morgeu squinted suspiciously at him and saw the skeletonhead
moon through his transparent body. 'I don't believe you.'

'Then listen, Morgeu, and I will tell you things only I, your
father, could know.'

With her hands crossed over her womb, Morgeu listened to
the ghost describe the intimate details of her childhood with him

- memories many of which she had forgotten herself until she
was reminded by him. Her blood listened. She asked questions,
and he answered each correcdy and with the emotional valence
she expected from her father — an imperious, short-tempered
brusqueness. 'Father — this really is you!'

'Daughter, you must help me.' He opened his arms, mys-
tified. 'I don't know where I am.'

'Father — you are in the hollow hills! Only the bloodbond
with the childflesh I am weaving in my womb allows me to
see and hear you.'

'Help me!' he called, his eyes of crushed ice bent with woe.

Morgeu passed her hands through his emptiness. 'I will -
somehow. But I don't know how yet. Y o u must be patient

Before she could say more, the wind coughed through the
birches, and the wraith faded away.

The Gentle Wound

Aidan's only unmarried daughter, Eufirasia, a young woman of
sixteen summers, served her father and his guests throughout
the night as they discussed the politics of the north, the hopes
and fears of the clans, and the dangerous plight of the Britons and

Celts who held the south. Was it the harp and zither music that
the young king had brought into the mead hall with him that
created for her an exotic atmosphere of far-flung places come
to visit her all-too-familiar home? Or was it the youth of the
king, a full year younger than she, that so intrigued her with
his manly presence? Then, again, maybe it was the manner in
which he parlayed so earnesdy with her father, casting not even
a curious glance her way, that fascinated her and made her take
closer notice of him.

Throughout the north, Eufrasia was renowned for her
beauty, and her suitors came from every notable clan between
the lake country and the Antonine Wall. She had received
marvelous gifts — a swift, shadow-thin stallion bred from the
steeds of a desert kingdom, wolfhounds out of the Isle of the

Scotii, a silver goshawk, and jewelry and fine silks imported
from the ancient and distant kingdom of the Medes — all these
fine things just for the right of men to look at her. And this
king paid her no more heed than if she were a scullery maid.

And so, she scrutinized him as she came and went with
drinking horns of fermented fruit ciders and baskets of breads.

For his age, he was large across the shoulders and tall, yet
his face belied his stature: his milk-pale skin and rosy, beard-
less cheeks belonged to a child. The news of him from her
father's counselors was that he had won a reputation as a
fierce horseman, renowned even among the battle-hardened
invaders for his ferocity. But his eyes — yellow as honey

- had not the hardened gaze of a warrior. And the fact
that a day of close talk had stretched into night without her
father pounding the table and shouting even once attested
to the curiously tender and intelligent nature of the young
king.

Confounded by King Arthor's indifference to her, Eufrasia
retreated to her bedchamber and studied herself in a mirror.

Was there some flaw that she and others had misperceived
about the sheen of her long blonde tresses, the clarity of
her large gray eyes, the smooth pallor of her skin, the con-
fident curve of her jaw? She noticed nothing awry with her
beauty. And yet — and yet . . . Something of her counten-
ance had changed. Her maids noticed at once and giggled
behind their hands. And then she perceived it, too - the
gende wound, the hurt joy, the quiet cry of a young woman
in love.

Avalon -

Merlin as a dwarf and the monkey that was Dagonet moved
through the syrupy light of day's end. They kept low among
the gray bramble and cinereous shrubs of the crepuscular world,
careful not to be spotted by Gorlois. The monkey chirred
inquisitively from Merlin's hunched shoulder. 'Quiet, Dagonet.

Thound twavels thwiftly in the hollow hillth. You'll thee where
we're going when we get there.'

Lightning wiped the sky behind him in the direction of the
palace shaped like fire. Merlin quickly led them away from
that dire place, and soon they climbed through a bracken
slope of dense, nacreous fog, the heart of rainfall, and emerged
into daylight bejeweled with dew. The monkey shook the
moisture from its fur and breathed in the sour redolence of
mulchy apples.

They stood beside a quicksilver thread of trickling water
threading among mossy rocks down a hillside prosperous with
ferns and club worts. From their vantage, they could see
morning hills, dells, and mountain cups crowded with apple
trees. Everywhere, the gnarly apple trees stood afoot in the
mushy brown loam of their dropped fruit. And on every bluff
and promontory stood needle rocks — menhirs carved with
futhorc incantations.

'Avalon,' Merlin announced. 'We have found our way to
the Apple Isle where the Nine Queenth dwell. I am hoping
they can help uth in our plight. Come, Dagonet.'

Through wild orchids under a vivid blue sky piled high
with golden clouds, Merlin and bestial Dagonet traipsed. They
descended to a central lake glittering with diamonds of reflected
sunlight. 'It ith here I wetheived Excalibur and firtht met the

Nine Queenth. Y o u know about them?'

The monkey shook his head, crouched at the bank, and
drank a handful of water.

'The Annum, whom I call the Fire Lordth, thelected one
queen from each ten thouthand year epoch of matwiarchal
wule and made them immortal. Ninety thouthand yearth of
matwiarchal wule gathered here in nine queenth. Why, you athk?

To change the human heart. Y o u thee, Dagonet, what each one
of uth thinketh - for good or ill — changeth all. The immortal
queenth have been teaching the human heart love and caring
for hundredth of thenturieth. But the latht queen wath brought
here ten thouthand yearth ago. Thince then, kingth have ruled.

And thoon, one queen will be releathed, to be replathed by a
king - King Arthor.'

Dagonet looked about impatiendy at the hillsides of tan-
gled apple boughs and the blue lake reflecting the seaborn
cumulus clouds.

'Yeth, you're wight, Dagonet,' Merlin conceded. 'I've
talked enough. N o w I will thummon the Nine Queenth.'

He lifted his arms and tried to send forth the brailles of his
heart to draw the queens to him. The brailles were power
cords that he had learned to extend through his heart's gateway
to touch the world. They were a strength of his demonic
nature that served his mortal body — yet, when he attempted
to use them, nothing happened. And he felt nothing happen-
ing. His dwarf body did not have the gateways of power
that his own flesh possessed. And at last, with a mournful
look, he turned to the monkey and said flady, 'My God,

Dagonet — I hope you wike appleth. I think we're thtuck
here.'

The Pale People

Gorlois wandered moaning through the netherworld, peering
among the dark; narrow trees at the watermelon twilight. The
red sky's green rind worried him, for it spoke of storms — and he
dreaded to think what a tempest in the hollow hills portended.

He steered himself away from the strange sunset, toward the
darker horizons.

Not far along, he heard the voices of children, laughing,
whispering mischievously. He searched for them but saw only
fireflies glittering in the lightless crannies of the gloomy forest.

'Hail!' he callech 'I hear you there. Come forth where I can
see you.'

Out of the night spaces, the pale people emerged. They
were not children at all but tall, narrow men and women with
adder eyes, tufted ears, and flesh tinged blue as milk. Their red
hair floated in the vesperal air like bloodsmoke. 'Myrddin,' they
called, using Merlin's Celtic name. 'Why are you here in the
hollow hills?'

Gorlois's startled gaze narrowed. 'Why — to find you. Of
course!'

'Where is your staff, Myrddin?' The pale people giggled and
began to spread out, encircling him, their vaporous raiment
blurring with their movements like fog.

'Broken, alas.' He shook his head unhappily. 'I took a fall

- back there.' He looked over his shoulder and took advantage
of this gesture to edge away and lean against an elder tree, to
protect his back. 'I must have hit my head, you see — for I have
forgotten a great deal. I was hoping that you, the Daoine Sid,
would help me remember myself.'

The laughter of the pale people brightened, and they looked
at each other with merriment in their green, viper eyes. 'What
do you need to remember, Myrddin?'

He stroked his wispy beard reflectively and jutted his
lower lip. 'Ah, well, perhaps you could show me the way
out of here?'

'Oh, Myrddin,' they chortled and their very long, very
white fingers plucked at his robes of midnight blue. 'We can
do better than that for you. We can help you remember your
magic, and then you can find your own way back to the world
under the sun and the moon.'

Gorlois pressed against the knobby tree, fearing that these
supernatural beings were taunting him, full aware of his true
identity. The pale people were well known to steal mortals
away and enslave them in the hollow hills or, worse, feed them
to the Dragon. 'I — I b-beg your help,' he stammered. 'And I
will reward you all handsomely.'

Will you now?' They stroked the fabric of his robes, their
fingers tracing the crimson stitching that patterned the cloth
with astrologic and alchemic sigils.

'Yes, for certain I will reward you,' he promised earnesdy.

'Just show me the way out of here.'

Will you give us your hat?' They tittered and pressed so
close he could smell their mulchy scent of autumnal leaves.

Gorlois doffed the wide-brimmed and conical hat. 'Here,
take the hat.'

They snatched the hat and passed it among them, mar-
veling at the signs stitched upon it. 'And your fine robes,
as well.'

Gorlois smashed himself against the tree. 'I'll be left naked!'

'As you first came into the world, Myrddin — so shall you
return to it.'

Skyward House

The Pictish wayfarer, Guthlac, stood a head shorter than most
men. But his deep-hulled chest, his majestic shoulders thick as
a bull's, his torso cobbled with muscle, and his powerful limbs
had the strength of any two men. More crucial yet to his role
as leader of a warband, his mason-block head atop the broad
hump of his neck swarmed with clever batde stratagems, ever
busy with warrior thoughts and lethal imaginings. Bald, save
for a skullcrest of brisdy orange hair, the entire length of his
thick, undulant body displayed blue tattoos. They described in
intricate spiral, whorling detail the path from the batde plains
of Middle Earth to Skyward House among the branches of the

Storm Tree, the splendid home reserved exclusively for heroes
slain in combat.

'Aidan entertains the Iron Hammer,' Guthlac informed his
warband of a dozen veteran Picts, half-naked men, tattooed all,
each individually garbed in crane feathers, leggings and boots
of animal and human skins, ears and nostrils pierced with
bone, bone spliced among temple braids and topknots, faces
grotesque with corpse-blue and death-white daubings. They
were a glorious squad, each man anointed in the blood of
enemies they had faced and vanquished singlehandedly. That
was why Guthlac had chosen them for this mission; they were
to a man war-tempered fighters, cool-headed and hard-willed
enough to infiltrate the Spiral Casde and secure either alliance
with Aidan - or the trophy of hiidiead. Together, they squatted
in an arboreal gulch beside a creek that chuckled past boulders
masked with moss. 'The doors of his ears are open wide to the

Roman promises that fed his forefathers. He will not make
agreement with us.'

'Then, we are to leave this Spiral Casde,' one of the men
asked, 'and return north to inform our king, Cruithni?'

'Does that way lead to the Skyward House?' Guthlac asked
with a derisive twist of his head. 'Aidan must taste fear. Then the
bird chatter of Iron Hammer's Latin will not sound as sweet.'

'Lot and Kyner flank Iron Hammer,' another of the warband
spoke up. 'They will taste not fear but our blood if we attack
them. We will find our way to Skyward House for certain —
but our king, Cruithni, will be ill served. And how after that
will we account proudly for ourselves among the war heroes?'

'So, we are agreed among us!' Guthlac smiled, exposing
teeth filed to points, the better for rending his enemies' flesh.

'We will slip among them by night, take our trophies, and leave
them with the sickening taste of fear.'

Rising in Fire

'I have good news for all of you,' Kyner spoke with Aidan's
men and their families in the fortress ward while King Arthor
and Lot sat with the chieftain in the mead hall. 'The great and
nameless God, the creator of the universe, has sent His son to
walk among us and to save us from the realm of the dead and
its goddess Hel.'

To entice the pagan Celts to come away from the elephants
shackled at the front gate and the entertainers resting in the
colorful tents of the main courtyard, Cei offered amber beads
to all who would listen to his father's sermon. Each translucent
bead had etched upon it a tiny fish emblem, a Christian symbol
for the Greek word for fish, ichthys, an acronym meant to
represent 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior'. But to the Celts
knowledgeable of runes, the etched fish appeared as Oddal,
symbol of inherited land and property — and that made the amber
beads magical implements for acquiring tangible possessions.

The people received them eagerly and listened respectfully to

Kyner's tale of virgin birth, magical events, gruesome death,
and resurrection.

Entertained by the story and gratified by the amber gift
and its promise of wealth, the people cheered Kyner when he
concluded. Those already familiar with Christianity and scornful
of it cheered anyway, obliged by their Celtic tradition to display
hospitality to the guests that their chief had admitted into their
community.

None stayed for the baptism to follow, and Cei shouted
irately at them to come back as they dispersed for their noon
meal. 'Save your voice, son.' Kyner shook his leather pouch
of amber beads. 'We've plenty more enticement left, but it's
wasted here in the settlement. These townbound souls are
hardened with greed. Let us go out into the surrounding fields
and thorpes and preach the good news to the rustics.'

Cei agreed, and they departed on horseback by a side gate.

The remainder of that afternoon, they rode the narrow traces
among the steep hills, visiting farms and crofts, handing out their
beads and their message of God's son rising in fire to heaven.

From afar, hidden in the treecrowns, Guthlac and his
warband observed the meandering transit of the preachers.

Toward nightfall, they silendy advanced upon a watde farm-
house the Celts had visited earlier. The watchful geese squawked
warning to the farmer, and he emerged with scythe in hand but
was little challenge to Guthlac, who caught the man's sweeping
blade in the notch of his ax and used the harvesting tool to
lop the farmer's head from his shoulders. The others swiftly
removed the heads of the farmer's wife and their four children.

Then, donning the clothes of their victims and wearing their
scalps, Guthlac and one other Pict hitched the farmer's wagon
and carried the others covered in hay sheafs and as many farm
animals as they could carry to the side gate of the stockade.

Eufrasia in Thrall

With his face obscured by scalp hair and twilight, Guthlac
announced to the gatekeeper in passable Latin, 'We have
received the good news from Lord Kyner. He bids us deliver
these animals for a holy feast. Let us in.'

When the keeper opened the gate, Guthlac stabbed him
through the throat, stoppering his death cry. The wagon trun-
dled onto the equestrian range, keeping to the stockade wall
behind the hone stables, where there was no one to observe
them. Aidan's warriors, always before too vigilant to allow
such a grievous breech of their defenses, were distracted by

King Arthor's astonishing entourage. They had joined the
setdement's residents, who had gathered in the main courtyard
to watch the boy-king's court performers emerge from their
tents and begin the evening festivities. Elephants paraded, bears
danced, wise dogs jumped and frolicked to jubilant music, and
no one saw the thirteen Pictish warriors move furtively as
shadows past the granary, the storage sheds, and the emptied
barracks.

The Pictish warriors deployed across the ward before the
mead hall: two positioning themselves behind the flour barrels
at the bakehouse while two others entered and cut the throat
pipes of the cook and his apprentice; three more clambered onto
the bailey scaffold, silent as wraiths, and killed the two guards
of the chieftain's keep while they leaned on their spears and
watched the celebrations in the far courtyard; three stationed
themselves at the back and sides of the mead hall, swords ready to
dispatch wandering sentinels; the last two of the warband waited
as the stars kindled into night, until a servant emerged from the
chieftain's manor, returning to attend the dignitaries in the mead
hall, and cut her throat, then barged into the timber lodge.

Eufrasia sat in her chamber inspecting herself in a mirror
when Guthlac kicked open her door. A thrown knife silenced
a screaming maid. The other servant gaped in voiceless terror as
the gruesome Pict pointed a sword at Eufrasia and said gruffly,

'Come silendy or die!'

Eufrasia, a chieftain's daughter and trained to defend herself,
snatched a dagger from her bedstand. Before she could throw'

it, the Pict's sword flashed and knocked it deftly from her
hand. The next moment, two more Picts entered, freckled
with the blood of the guards they had slain in the corridors.

She shouted an alarm but only briefly before leather thongs
secured her mouth, hands, and feet.

Heaved over Guthlac's shoulder, she struggled in vain as
he carried her into the night. Quickly, he retraced his steps,
gathering his warband behind him as he went. At the wagon
behind the stables, the chieftain's daughter was bundled among
the warriors, with a strict warning from Guthlac to his men not
to molest her. That privilege belonged to him.

Out the side gate the wagon exited, Guthlac on the riding
board, wearing the farmer's clothes and his scalp. Kyner and

Cei saw the wagon in the distance as they returned across the
nighdand, but, embittered by their failure to win even one soul
for their Savior, they paid the farmer no heed.

Treasures of the Otherworld

Merlin as a dwarf and Dagonet as a monkey walked the
perimeter of the lake on Avalon, searching for some sign of
the Nine Queens. They found only ruffled cabbage flowers
poking through the windfall apples.

Hopefully, Dagonet pointed up the bracken slopes to the
thin cascade that trickled from where they had arrived.

'No, Dagonet,' Merlin replied. 'We were lucky to get
out of the hollow hillth without magic. If we go back, we
may wun into the pale people. And they're a mithchievoth
lot.'

Dagonet picked up a newly fallen and unblemished apple
and bit into it. He followed Merlin as in a dream, chasing after
his own physical form as they wandered among the apple trees
and a few renegade elms.

At one of the larger elms, the wizard paused and pointed
to a hole at the base of the tree. 'Wook! And thmell!'

Monkey Dagonet crept up to the grass-fringed hole and
smelled a feverish reekr""""

'Dwagon bweath!' said Merlin.

Dagonet backed away swiftly, squeaking a small cry.

'Don't be afwaid.' Merlin crawled into the hole and dis-
appeared. A moment later, his big, freckled head poked out.

'Come on! The Dwagon ith athleep.'

The wizard descended into darkness, and Dagonet hesitated,
clutching nervously at his tail. Then, he edged into the hole,
feeling his way along the steep descent by grasping root tendrils
and jutting knobs of rock. The darkness thickened remorselessly,
until the hole above had dwindled to a distant star. When the
monkey's eyes had adjusted sufficiendy, Dagonet discerned a
soft glow in the depths.

Like a full moon in a jungle night, the light from below
shone through tangles of organic loops and fronds that were ac-
tually root cables and plates of silhouetted shale. Dagonet drop-
ped into a grotto illuminated by a percolating pool of sulfurous
water, orange and frothy red. He put a hand to his nose.

'Yeth, it thtinkth — but wook, Dagonet! Wook where
we are!'

Merlin pointed to glossy shelves of rock upon which lay
heaped dunes of gold coins, toppled urns of fiery rubies,
and cauldron pots of diamonds. 'The Tweathureth of the

Otherworld! The Dwagon hath collected thith hoard from the
cawavanth and thipth it hath thwallowed over the yearth.'

Dagonet climbed a stalagmite and plucked a polished dia-
mond from a pot of gems. He sniffed it, then bit it, and tossed
it to Merlin with a querying shake of his head.

'You're wight, Dagonet. It appearth like a diamond of our
world. But the Dwagon hath changed it, imbued it with hith
power. Behold!'

Merlin tossed the diamond into the bubbling pool - and the
water agitated, then went perfecdy calm - still and reflectant as
a mirror. In its surface, they peered and saw themselves in their
true forms - Lailoken a demon of flanged jaws, serpent grin, and
hooded flame-core eyes. And beside him, where the monkey
gazed, a Fire Lord stood, resplendent in golden flames.

King Arthor's Shame

The blood of the gatekeeper, four guards, the baker and his
apprentice, a maidservant, and almost surely Eufrasia's blood
as well weighed heavily on the young king. 'I am ashamed of
what has happened,' he admitted to Aidan after they heard the
surviving chambermaid's account of Guthlac's bold abduction of
the chieftain's youngest daughter. From the fleece rug splattered
with the blood of the dead maid, he picked up Eufrasia's dagger.

'I am ashamed that you have suffered such a terrible loss while
under my protection.'

'Your protection?' Aidan's ruddy face darkened. Y o u ' r e just a boy - younger than the daughter I lost.'

'I am your king,' Arthor replied calmly, his face ashen and
grim but not flinching before the enraged chieftain's tight stare.

'You had every right to expect security in my presence — and

I have failed you.'

'Retrieve my daughter, boy, and I will bend my knee
before you and call you king.' Aidan turned away in dis-
gust, then stopped in the doorway and pointed a thick finger
at the youth. 'But if my Eufrasia is dead or in any way
maimed, do not dare show your hairless face at the Spiral

Casde again!'

After the chieftain stalked out of the manor lodge, Arthor
looked to his aide, Bedevere. 'See that the elephants and all
the performers are sent back to Camelot. I have undertaken
this tour of my kingdom too merrily.'

'Sire, this tragedy is not your fault,' Bedevere consoled.

'After all, you are a guest in these walls and under Chief

Aidan's protection and Lord Lot's countenance.'

'Is that what it means to be king, Bedevere?' Arthor admon-
ished the steward with a frown. 'No. I alone am responsible. I
am the high king, and all my people must have faith that I can
protect them. Otherwise, I am no better a monarch than the
carnival mummers I parade with.'

Kyner and Cei met King Arthor as he exited the manor.

'My lord, forgive us!' the elder Celt beseeched contritely. 'We
saw the Picts upon the high road leaving the stockade and did
not recognize them for the brigands they are.'

'How the harrowing hades were we to know, father?'

Cei glowered morosely. 'It was dark, and they rode past
disguised.'

'You should not have been about the countryside preaching]'

Arthor scolded, then caught himself. 'Forgive me, father —
brother. I'm distraught, because my negligence has brought
grief to this casde. I should have thought to establish my own
perimeter. I was so eager to win the hearts of these people, I
did not think to protect them.'

Lot emerged from the bailey with armed escorts bearing
torches. 'Aidan tells me you are determined to go after Eufrasia.

That was a fool's promise, my lord, for you will have to go alone.

We have tracked the wagon to where the Picts abandoned it
at the cliff traces. They have disappeared into the gorges. Not
even Aidan's men will descend into that confusing wilderness.

Ambuscade is too easy down there — and besides, once a rescue
party is seen by the Picts, Eufrasia's life is forfeit.'

'I intend to go alone.'

'I will go with you, brother.'

'No, Cei. Y o u know I love you for your courage, but it
would be easier to hide an elephant on those cliff trails.'

Concerning Ghosts, Demons, and Wizards

The pale people took Gorlois's hat and robes and ran laughing
through the trees, crying, 'Follow us! Follow us!'

Naked but for his hemp sandals, the ghost in the body
of Merlin gawked about fearfully. Trees like old women,
like beggars, stood stooped on all sides, eye-sparks watching
from the holes in their trunks. He bolted after the Daoine

Sid, hoping they would lead him out of this dark wood of
perpetual twilight. But soon only the scornful laughter of the
elfen people remained, and then that, too, dwindled into the
maroon air.

Gorlois stopped running and shouted a curse, 'Damnation
on all of you!' In frustration, he kicked at a pulpy log fallen
to mushrooms, stubbed his toe, and cried out again. The pain
startled him. I'm alive! he thought and giddily recalled the grievous sensation he had experienced when he first awoke
inside a monkey and learned that he had been slain on the
plains of Londinium. He had no memory of that, but the throb
in his toe had a good memory — and that made him laugh.

Without warning, the gust of laughter opened the gates of
power in the wizard's body. The dry stalks of grass around
him rustled in a wind that rose directly out of the ground and
lifted dead leaves spiraling into the brown air. 'I am a ghost!'

he laughed louder, and the leaves flew back onto their branches
and swelled with green sap. 'I am a ghost who defeated a demon
and became a wizard!' His laughter widened maniacally, and he
slapped his naked body and guffawed to see blue sparks jump
from his pallid flesh.

'The magic is inside me!' he realized. He urinated, and tiny,
quartz-petal flowers sprouted where he splashed. More laughter
sent him running again, this time for joy. The nightmare had
become a euphoric dream. He ran faster, until his churning feet
no longer touched the ground, and he flew with his white beard
forked by the speed of his headlong trajectory. Swerving among
the trees, he looked for the pale people. But there was no sign
of them.

He willed himself to stop — but his flight accelerated, and
he began to soar. Fright replaced joy, and he fell in a tangle of
limbs among the leaf drifts. Groaning, he sat up and brushed
beedes and snails from his beard. 'Let up, Gorlois!' he chided
himself. 'Magic is an art.'

At that thought, he allowed liimself a chuckle. 'I, an artist!'

He swirled a tapered finger in the air and drew paisleys of light.

That inspired further laughing, and soon the gates of magical
power swung wide again, and Gorlois bounded upright and
charged into the gloom, spry as a gazelle.

The Dragon Pool

Merlin stood back from the clear water in which he had seen
the monkey reflected as a Fire Lord and stared dumbfounded
at the beast. 'You are an angel?'

The wizard was well aware that humanity had been shaped
over aeons by the Fire Lords - that the entire universe was their
workshop, in which they were building the cosmic devices that
would carry them back to heaven, to the realm of pure light
from which all creation had emerged at the start of time.

People were a prototype of beings yet to come, complexities
vast enough to carry the Fire Lords out of the cold and dark of
space to the eternal glory of paradise. And he knew, also, that,
crude as they were, human beings were capable of housing
vast charges of energy. His own mother, Saint Optima, had
embodied enough angelic force to weave a human form that
could hold his demon power. Yet, he was certain that the
body of a man was too frail to contain the luminosity of a

Fire Lord.

He peeked again into the Dragon Pool and looked more
closely at the shining form he saw reflected by the monkey.

He noticed that the Fire Lord did not actually radiate forth
from Dagonet's soul but merely enclosed it. That in itself
was astonishing, though far more believable to the demon.

The propinquity of great entities often distorted the flesh of
mortals. That was why Dagonet had been born a dwarf: an
angel escorted him.

Y o u don't know it, Dsgonet, but you have a gweat fwiend
who watcheth over you.' The wizard scratched his curly, orange
locks, wondering about this. 'Then it wath no acthident that you
found your way to our King Arthor. Y o u have a holy dethtiny,
and your thtunted body ith the pwithe you mutht pay for it.'

Before Merlin could reflect further on this, bright laughter
gleamed from among the stalagmites. When he spun about to
see the source of the gaiety, he nearly toppled backward into
the Dragon Pool. A tall man wearing his conical hat and robes
stood at the far end of the cavern. 'Who are you?' he shouted
in alarm. But the tall stranger gave no answer.

The monkey scampered across the grotto and snatched the
hat, revealing the wet-looking tip of a stalagmite. More laughter.

echoed from the recesses of the jewel-strewn vault.

'The Daoine Thid!' the wizard surmised and went to
retrieve his garments. 'How came you by thethe?'

No reply followed, and laughter sparkled from farther
away.

'Thomewhere, Gorlois wanderth naked in my body.' Mer-
lin fit the hat to his head, and the magic in it immediately
widened the range of his hearing. He listened to the pale people
snickering at his predicament, heard the Dragon snoring from
the depths of its millennial sleep, and detected by the echoes of
subterranean streams a honeycomb of caverns beyond this one.

'Dagonet, the pale people are playing with uth. We now have
enough magic to get uth into thome weal twouble.'

Falon

Torrential light poured through a rift among tall tranquil trees
of a verdant gorge, illuminating Arthor as he stepped down the
goat paths of the Spiral Casde's natural wall. With Excalibur
strapped to his back to better free the movement of his limbs,
he edged carefully along the narrow stone ledges. He wore a
simple doeskin kilt and no hat to cover the badger brisdes of
his hair.

A strange bird whisded. It stopped Arthor cold. At first,
he feared the Picts had spied him. But when he dared bend
forward and peer into the bottom of the summer morning so
far below, he saw a gangly, bare-chested old man in buckskins
waving cheerfully at him. The stranger, chirping like a bird,
whisded for him to come down.

Arthor resumed his descent, and when he arrived among the
tangles of ivy and lime at the foot of behemoth trees, the old man
had laid out a small meal for him upon a rush mat: oatcakes, salt
fish, and apples split to show the star in them. 'I am Falon,' the
stranger introduced himself in lucent Latin. 'And you are King

Arthor. I watched your batde party arrive the other day. Very
impressive.'

Arthor accepted Falon's invitation to sit and partake of his
simple fare. He noted streaks of orange in long, braided hair the
color of ash and a vague scar at the side of his throat where once
the man had worn a tore. 'I see you are a Celt of the old way,'

Arthor said around a bite of apple. 'Where is your clan?'

'I have no clan. I amfiana.' Falon looked to see if Arthor
knew of the fabled horsemen of no home who served the

Celtic queen by defending her highways and countryside from
marauders. He smiled at the look of awe in the boy's face and
revealed strong, white teeth. 'I became your mother's champion
when she was a peasant maiden and taken from her village in
the hills by the druids. She was my queen — until she gave
herself to your father and took upon herself the way of the

Cross-worshipers.'

A fleeting shadow of sadness crossed the lad's face. 'I have
never seen my mother.'

'Nor will you if the Picts who stole Aidan's daughter find
you as easily as I have.'

Arthor's eyes gleamed suddenly. 'You know why I am
here?'

'I exiled myself to the Spiral Casde after your mother freed
me from her service,' Falon said, nibbling at an oatcake. 'Aidan is
unaware of me. But I know all that transpires in these glens.'

'Then you can lead me to Eufrasia?'

'Perhaps.' Falon's pale gaze narrowed. 'But I have no love
for Cross-worshipers. That is why your mother freed me.'

Y o u must help me, Falon.' Shame tainted Arthor's pleadful
voice. 'I am the one who put that maiden in the hands of our
enemies. Please - help me.'

'I will help you if you are a good king,' Falon answered,
closing one eye. 'And for me to know that, you must answer
this question. What is more important to a king — Mercy or

Justice?'

'Justice is about truth,' Arthor replied almost at once, for he
himself had pondered the matter before, when Kyner insisted
his ward study the old philosophers. 'And truth has many sides,

Falon. Justice and Truth have shapes that change among the
nations and throughout the seasons of history. But Mercy -

Mercy is Love, and that has the same strength and beauty for
all people, for all time. As king, I serve Mercy, not Justice.'

Falon showed his strong, white teeth again. 'Then you are
my king, as well.'

Magic on the Tor

Morgeu the Fey left her husband's bed in the hour when
the moon mists over on its way westward with the darkness.

Chanting sleep to the gatekeeper whose predecessor had died
only hours before, she left the stockade and wandered in her red
raiment and silver slippers through wood shadows and up a path
of blue slate to a tor beneath the rustling stars. Fury powered her
steps, and she moved with a rageful vigor to the summit of the
rocky pinnacle.

From this height of the world, she could see across the Spiral

Casde to where her half-brother, the king, would try his fate
against the Picts. The child of his that she carried in her womb
had lost his soul to Merlin — and now she would see that Merlin
lost his child, as well. No matter now that without Arthor, the
throne she coveted for her children would fall to contention
again among the warlords. No matter the chaos that would
ensue. She had striven to be noble, to strike a reconciliation
of love and magic with her brother, as the Pharaohs of ancient

Mgypt had accomplished with their sisters. But the wraithly sight of her father's soul that would have been her child's soul now
magically captured by Merlin's body gave her the determination
to strike back.

A red band of mist appeared in the east. The fissure between

worlds.

Angrily intoning the names of the north gods' chieftain, she
summoned Lailoken's most powerful foe: 'All-Father, Great

Father, One-Eye-AU-Seeing, Furor and Rune-Master, Frenzied

God of the Wild Hunt, Sacrifice of the Storm Tree, hear
my call!'

A vast and soundless flash of lightning crossed the clear sky.

The moon in the west gleamed like a blind eye.

'Furor, know that Aquila Regalis Thor, your enemy,
descends into the chasms of the Spiral Casde. Send your

Raven to spy him out and guide your faithful warriors like
wolves to him wherever he may hide. Flense the flesh from his
bones and stretch it upon the wardrums that salute you. Think
how sweet its music will sound, the drumbeat, heartbeat of a
dead foe who will thwart you no more.'

Another mute stroke of lightning shuddered across the dawn
and shook the last stars from their sockets.

'These words are chanted for this day, from the secret depths
of my being, where blood and flesh of brother and sister knit
the promise of a tomorrow that will never come. My future is
violated — and I am enraged that what is most intimate to me
is stolen. By this wrath and the little death in me, I summon
a wrathful and larger death for a king. May it be so.'

The dawn world fell quiet. No birds announced the sun.

No matin breeze stirred the leaves on the trees below the barren
peak. The shadow of death rose like mist.

Eufrasia and the Picts

A warrior with one eye white as a boiled egg put his hand to
the side of Eufrasia's head and stroked her flaxen hair. She stood
naked, her arms outspread, feet apart, thong-tied between two
beech trees. Chin high, her gray eyes stared defiantly at her
captors. Until now, none had touched her, save to secure her
between the trees. She did not flinch at the Pict's caress, for
she was fearless of whatever fate offered. A chieftain's daughter,
desired by every unbetrothed Celtic warrior in the land, she
fully intended to die a death worthy of her station and the
beauty that the gods had bestowed on her. She would not
grovel before these ugly men, and throughout the night she
had mocked them openly for their cowardice in creeping like
rats through the darkness to steal her.

'Get away from her, White-Eye,' Guthlac called as he
returned from relieving himself in the bushes. Their cap-
tive's bravery and insults prevented him and his warband
from molesting her. Not only was she far more valuable as
an intact hostage but their honor as warriors destined for the

Skyward House demanded respect for all people of spirit,.even
their enemies and especially their prisoners. 'Do you want to
damn us all to the House of Fog?'

'Her spirit is on her skin, Guthlac,' White-Eye said, running
a thumb under Eufrasia's chin. 'Touch her deeper and her insults
will turn to frightened tears and fearful sobs. I know women.'

Eufrasia spat in White-Eye's good eye and rasped in a voice
husky from a night of shouting insults, 'AD you know of women
you learned from cows, you son of a mare.'

Guthlac put a firm hand on White-Eye's shoulder and
guided him to where the others sat cracking triangular beech
nuts on the creek rocks, whetting their knives on the shale,
unbraiding their batde tresses to let summer in their hair, or lying
on the boulders in the naked light, listening to the bird-loud
morning.

No one else paid any heed to the woman. All had hoped
she would have cringed; then, Guthlac would have broken her
maidenhead as was the right of brave men with craven maidens,
and the others would have broken their lust upon her afterward.

But clearly, she carried the favor of the gods, who bestowed
spirit and admired those who displayed it proudly. None would
look at White-Eye who had touched her, for fear that they
would lose their batde-luck.

'Our men in the tree-crests see no one coming for you,'

Guthlac informed the maiden. 'You are your father's youngest,
and he has abandoned you. He has accepted your loss, for he
has other daughters and grandchildren by them. He will not
trade you for alliance with our mighty king, Cruithni. No gold
will be offered for your safe return, for Aidan is too proud a
chieftain to trade gold for a woman's life. So, we wait out this
day and then you will have a choice to make, brave maiden.'

The Pict's knife sighed as it left its sheath. 'The scalp of a maiden
with your spirit is a useful talisman and the painful cries of your
slow death a worthy song for our gods.' He showed his pointed
teeth in a smile akin to a sneer. 'Or you may choose life and
come away with us as our comfort bride — and your beauty will
serve us all.'

The Soul's Task

Merlin filled die pockets of his robes with diamonds, rubies,
and sapphires. The monkey with Dagonet's soul within watched
him from where he squatted on a stumpy outcrop the color of
raw meat. By the spectral glow of the Dragon Pool, the wizard
rolled up and tied off the long robes so that they fit his dwarfed
body. 'Come along, Dagonet,' he said, straightening the hat on
his head. 'Let uth climb back up to Avalon. With the magic
in thith hat and the Tweathureth of the Otherworld, we will
have our audienth with the Nine Queenth.'

As Merlin promised, the Isle of Apples disclosed its secrets
when he and Dagonet emerged from the hole under the
elm. With the hat on, the wizard could once again read
the.futhorc of the menhirs. He read a few of the poems to

Dagonet — song-rhymes full of code about seasons past and
yet to come, prophecies spent and unfurled. They proceeded
among the apple trees and down mossy rock shelves to an odd
round lodge, brown as gingerbread and squady lopsided as a
mushroom cap.

After knocking three times on the crooked wooden door,

Merlin entered, and Dagonet followed into a spare interior
of earth-tamped floor and walls decorated in spirals and wavy
lines of warm color. Slant rays of azure light from small, round
windows high in the dome illuminated nine veiled women
sitting all in a line upon bulky block-cut thrones. The mulchy
taint of autumn filled the air.

'Raia, queen of the Flint Kniveth,' Merlin called to the one
farthest to their left. She lifted her veil and revealed a young
face as near to falcon as human, with blue dusk pressed into her
temples, a sheen of fish scales to her flesh, and coils of hair the
color of a thrush's breast. 'We've lotht our way. Help uth.'

'Oh, Merlin.' Sadness closed her face almost to tears. What
of the work your mother set you to do? What of Arthor? How
will he take my place if he does not fulfill the prophecies?'

'Rna — I — I. . .' Merlin stammered to silence, stunned. He
had not expected this rebuke, and his ears burned with shame.

'You stole a soul, Merlin.' The solemnly beautiful woman
shook her head ruefully. 'How could you do that? You,

Optima's son. How dare you interfere with what comes from

God? Y o u are not a demon anymore. Or are you? Are you

Lailoken? Or are you Merlin?'

'Rna — I — I don't know.' Merlin trembled from scalp to
toes, his heart tight as a knot. Humiliation flustered through him
at the queen's reproach. 'I — I did what I thought betht. The
child ith an inthetht cweature . . . the bwutal Gorlois . . .'

'Merlin!' Rna held him with a fierce look. 'A child is always
a child and belongs to God. Go and return the soul to where it
belongs — if it is not already too late.'

'But - I don't know how to get back.' The wizard opened
his arms helplessly, long robes dragging on the ground. 'I'm
lotht.'

'Of course you're lost. The Fire Lord that escorts Dagonet
was sent to watch over you and Arthor. He is angry you've
become a demon again. He has set you a task that will undo
your pride.'

'I'm thorry!' Merlin shuffled with mortification before the

Nine Queens. 'Thith won't happen again!'

'It may already be too late.' Rna's heron-gray lids fluttered
sleepily. 'You thought you knew better. But what did you
know, Merlin? What did you know?' She lowered her black
veil. 'What the mind learns, the soul must unlearn. That is the
soul's task.'

Out of the Hollow Hills

Gorlois soared above the bramble and skinny trees of the
netherworld. The landscape glowed below him in the winey
light of sunset like a wilderness of dreams. But he had no
attention for that. His mind was fixed above, on the sky of
the underworld, the canopy of faint stars and spongy moon.

As he flew closer, powered by the giddy magic coursing
through his wizard body, he noticed that the stars and moon
were only luminescent shadows in the sod and root mats that
dangled from the ceiling of this vast subterranean cavern. He
drove himself like an arrow into the mulchy underside of the
earth. With frenzied laughter, he dug at the loam, pulling away
huge clumps of peat. His magic gave him superhuman strength.

Like an avalanche, masses of earth toppled past him, and soon
threads of sunlight shone through the scrim of roots and loose
soil above. '

Gorlois pulled himself into dazzling daylight, racked with
laughter. Even as he skidded out of the tight crevice he had dug,
the wounded earth healed behind him. He rolled down a knoll
under a morning sky polished with cottony rags of cloud. Pines
moaned in the passing wind, full of brine and surf sounds, and
the stones under him burned where the sun had beaten them.

He stood up, exultant, exuberant, exiled from death.

Gazing about to orient himself, he saw that he stood upon
a grassy escarpment above a herd of dunes. Shrieking gulls
swooped over mussel shoals where giant combers rolled to
shore like fantastic, silver-haired gods. 'The Cantii Coast,'

he said aloud, recognizing the wide strand where the alluvial
plains of the Tamesis River met the sea. 'The Saxons hold
this land.'

As if summoned by the magic of his words, four burly
fishermen appeared from over the crest of the scarp carrying
a flat-bottomed Saxon boat between them. The sight of the
naked old man elicited shouts from them. 'You, codger! What
are you about?'

Gorlois did not understand their language. But the laughter
that had opened the gates of power throughout his body
widened apertures in his head that caught the echoes of what
they had said and rendered meaning from them. Likewise, his
throat flexed with mirth, and the sheer merriment of standing
before these foes naked in Merlin's body gave voice to his
thoughts in the language of these strangers, 'Do you not
recognize me, fools?'

'Fools, are we?' The fishermen lowered their boat and came
jogging toward him. 'You're addlepated standing here naked
and calling us fools. Tell us who you are or we'll give you a
good dunking to refresh your memory.'

Gorlois barked with laughter and clapped his hands. The
wheeling gulls came flying at the fishermen, screaming toward
their heads so that the men fell to the ground before the naked
stranger like prostrate worshipers. 'I am Merlin, the greatest
wizard in all Britain. When you've had your fill of sand, get
up and take me to your King Wesc. I have a proposition
for him.'

Mother Mary, my life is in God's hands. All that has been given
may be taken from me easily now if He so wills. And if what I am

— a lustful man who has fathered a child by incest - displeases God
more than what I could be — a king who places love above power —
then destroy me here in the Spiral Castle among my enemies. I would
die this way, by the sword that has been my life and the hope of my

redemption.

The Ale-Minstrel

Along the creek bed he came, plucking a rota, a zither of five strings with bone-yoke facings and a beaverskin carrying-bag
thrown over his shoulder. At his hip, he wore a horn of liquor.

Purple tattoos etched his face and arms with elder runes in the

Saxon style — and by the rune-eye between his eyes, all could
plainly see he was an ale-minstrel devoted to the Rune-Master
himself, the Furor. He came singing with a Saxon's ardor, 'Lead
me to true knowledge, lead me on the future paths. All-Father, Great

Father, lead me on, lead me on!'

Guthlac himself met him at the ford and said in the dialect
of the north, 'Ale-minstrel — how came you here to this

Celtic place? And from whence among our brother Saxons
do you hail?'

'The Great Father has led me here. I hail from nowhere -
and to nowhere am I bound. Did you not hear my song?'

'All of the Spiral Casde hears your song, loudmouth!'

White-Eye shouted from the creek bank. 'Are you calling
our foes?'

'Foes?' The ale-minstrel looked baffled. 'There are no
foes where I am. For where I go, goes our Great Father,
the Furor.'

'Pay no heed to that one, minstrel.' Guthlac summoned
him across the ford. 'He'd as soon set our course for the

House of Fog with his ire. But we have hospitality for the

Rune-Master's own.'

Guthlac led the ale-minstrel up the bank, through a barberry
bush and into the encampment, where six of the warband's
twelve sat about, cracking nuts and cleaning weapons beside
a naked woman bound between two trees. While the minstrel
passed his horn of liquor around and strolled, strumming his rota,
the chieftain told the tale of her capture in a bold night raid.

Midway through the tale, a flash of rain poured from the clear
sky — an obvious blessing from the Furor for their hospitality
to his minstrel.

An outraged shout went up from White-Eye at the sight of
the ale-minstrel's tattoos running blue in the rain. 'Impostor!'

With blurring speed, Arthor smashed the rota over the head
of the nearest Pict, and from the beaverskin carrying-bag, he
drew Excalibur. It sang, and two heads rolled, the toppling
bodies jetting blood. With one deft circular stroke, he severed

Eufrasia's bonds. She collapsed and seized the sword of a
decapitated Pict, lifting it with desperate strength and impaling
a charging warrior - White-Eye.

The Picts flew at Arthor, leaping like singed wildcats, blades
flashing sunlight from their keen edges. The young king whirled
before them, slicing his sword in a low scything sweep that cut
the assailants' thews and dropped them screaming.

Great and sinewy Guthlac came howling, ax held high, and

Excalibur spilled his bowels and sent him on the black ride to

Skyward House. Before the other Picts could return from their
sentinel posts, Arthor covered Eufrasia's nakedness with the
beaverskin bag, hoisted her weakened body on his shoulders,
and fled into the primordial forest.

Aidan's Pledge

Falon, who had watched the slaughter from a covert among
the profusion of creek bracken, quickly led Arthor and his
frail burden along the secret gorge paths he knew, and soon
they were well away from the Pictish camp. 'That rain was
unnatural,' he said, guiding the way up the goat steps to the
sward at the summit, where Arthor's palfrey waited. 'Someone
works fell magic against you, sire. Only your lethal skills
saved you.'

'My skills were useless without yours, Falon.' Arthor offered
the old Celt his hand when they attained the crest. 'Your
knowledge of runes, your artistry with reed-pen and Devil's

Milk for ink, your ale-horn, your rota — how else could I
have approached close enough for my skills to matter? Come
with me. Join my company and sit at the Round Table as my
counselor.'

Falon shook his head. 'I am too old, sire. Leave a new rota
for me before you depart. That music is the only company

I need.'

On the ride back to the stockade, Eufrasia held firmly to
her champion. Y o u spoke their language so well, I thought
you were of their ilk.'

'I grew up believing I was sired by a Saxon, my lady. I
took pains early to learn what I thought was the tongue of
my father.'

When the stockade gates swung open, Aidan stood dumb-
founded at the sight of his daughter. Her happy embrace broke
the rigor of his shock, and he fell to his knees before the young
man of blue face and arms. 'King Arthor — accept my pledge!

You are my lord, and all that is mine is yours. The Spiral Casde
will hold the north against our enemies. There will be no
alliance with the Picts. Your banner alone will fly from these
ramparts.'

Eufrasia, nudging aside her tearful mother and the maids
who had flocked to cover her in silken robes, knelt in the king's
shadow. '1 am yours, my lord.'

Aidan nodded and smiled. 'She has my blessing to go with
you — if you will have her, sire.'

Arthor urged Eufrasia to her feet and shook his head once,
his heart suddenly tight at the thought of giving himself to
another woman after the tragedy with Morgeu. 'My lady—'

His mind raced for the words to rescue him. 'There are many
batdes yet ahead of me. Y o u deserve better after what you've
suffered under my negligent protection. Y o u will have a happier
life without me.'

Aidan and his wife nodded with amazement, taking the
young king's fear of love as compassion for their daughter.

They could not imagine any man not loving Eufrasia for
her beauty and courage and accepted Arthor's refusal as a
true act of selflessness. On the spot, the chieftain declared,

'By this turn, you have convinced me of the merit of your
nailed god, sire. He has taught you love greater than any I
have seen before in any man. Send your priests to us, and we
will listen with open hearts, that we may learn to be as caring
of others as you.'

Kyner clasped his chest at this pronouncement, and Cei
threw his hands up in surprise before his young brother's
achievement. Only Bedevere smiled coolly at Arthor's tact.

He alone heard the fatuity in the king's words, for he knew of

Morgeu and the young man's invisible and unhealing wound.

Mother Mary, am I wrong to leave Eufrasia behind? Am I wrong to
sacrifice my camal desires and the hope of my heart to atone for the
evil I have wrought with Morgeu? This day, my blood could have
run with the ink from my body. Yet, God spared me. Surely, I
am not saved from the sword to seek comfort in a woman's arms

— even the arms of a woman as beautiful as Eufrasia. I have been
too easily misled by desire. My reward is the fealty I have won
this day from the clans of the north — and Aidan's promise to
receive the good news of our Savior. Those are lasting pleasures,
whereas the pleasures of the flesh arrive with the heat, intensity, and
brevity of lightning — only to be followed by thunderous consequences.

Forgive me, Mother Mary. Forgive me if now I betray love for fear

of desire.

A U T U M N :

Secret House of the Wind

Lawspeaker

The Saxon king Wesc occupied a three-centuries-old Roman
villa enclosed by stately poplars. The old vineyards of the estate
had been razed to make room for wattle-and-daub cottages:

housing for the settlers from Saxony and Juteland. In their
midst, the winery and the vintner's manse still stood, serving
as administrative buildings for the Foederatus, the alliance of
northern tribes that occupied the eastern lowlands of Britain.

Gorlois strode naked into the winery, giggling like a lunatic.

Stocky, leather-helmeted warriors in quasi-Roman batde gear
escorted him across a mosaic of the wine-god Bacchus that two
centuries of wind and rain had scoured to a ghosdy semblance
of its former beauty. The alcoves that had once held fermenting
vats displayed 'raven's food' - war trophies: tapestries of woven
scalps, harps of human bone, drums stretched with the flayed
skin of enemies, and racks of skull cups. Here the skalds and
vitikis — bards and seers — resided.

None were present when the warriors brought in the laughing
wizard, for his weird countenance and brittle laughter frightened
them. Only the Lawspeaker, the king's personal vitiki, accepted the risk of this dangerous confrontation. Old and wise in the
ways of magic, he presided from a bench-of-authority that had
been fashioned from the stonework of the central press. The
purple-stained blocks had been heaped into two columns on
either side of where the elder sat on a wolfskin with the head
propped above him, its fangs bared. From each column, clusters
of human skulls dangled.

The Lawspeaker, despite the summer heat, wore a long-
sleeved wool shirt and trousers, a red mantle, and long braids
of ashen hair. He appeared as old as Gorlois, but he was not
laughing. With a slight shift of his rheumy eyes, he ordered the
guards to depart, and he regarded Gorlois with chill attentive-
ness. 'I am Lawspeaker for King Wesc. I am not afraid of your
magic, Merlin.'

'You should be, old fellow.' Gorlois grinned wickedly.

'You should be.' His magical strength reached out, and, with
a laugh, he yanked the wolfs mask down hard upon the
elder's head.

The Lawspeaker seemed unfazed. He pulled the wolfskin
tighter about himself and continued to stare at Gorlois with cold
appraisal. 'Magic cannot avail against virtue.'

'You speak of virtue?' Gorlois laughed harder, and the
dangling skulls rattled vehemendy, spewing teeth and shards
of cranium. 'You land-thieves, you murderers dare speak of
virtue?'

'Land is the hide of the World Dragon,' the withered

Lawspeaker declared in a strong voice. 'It cannot be owned
and so cannot be stolen. As for murder, that is the faith of
the strong.'

'I will show you strength!' Gorlois's magic toppled the
stack of stone blocks to his right. 'I am strong! Now you will
obey me!'

'Virtue is stronger,' the Lawspeaker said and bent to scoop
up a handful of skull powder and stone dust from the fallen
column. 'Even one as old as I can defeat you with an empty
hand.'

Gorlois laughed at the old man's presumption and prepared
to heave the stone bench over and throw the Lawspeaker to
his back. But before he could act, the aged Saxon's cheeks
puffed out, and a cloud of dust engulged Gorlois's head. In a
fit of coughing, the laughter stopped and the gates of power
closed in him.

The Lawspeaker rose, seized Gorlois's long nose, and led
him choking and squealing from the hall of bards.

Mother Mary, this day I have survived to my sixteenth year. To
commemorate, Kyner and Cei rode ahead to the riverbluff city of Greta

Bridge and arranged for a feast and a joyful celebration. I was genuinely
surprised - and abashed — that the entire town turned out to greet me
with loud cheer, as though I had already won great battles instead of
simply retrieving a clan chief's daughter from a small warband. But,

I am happy to tell you, I forgot not my promise in the frenzy of the
festivities: I drank fruit nectars and no wine. Cei and several others
imbibed freely and passed out during the garland dances. Lot and the
laird of Greta Bridge held their wine far better and honored me with a
parade of drone pipes. Oh yes, and Bedevere insisted I commemorate
the occasion by establishing my royal colors. I chose red and white —
for Christ's blood and the dove of peace, the Holy Spirit. Only later,
after the tailors of Greta Bridge had fashioned my banner with a red
eagle upon a white field, did Kyner observe I had selected the opposite
colors of my father Uther's green and black. That seems just to me now
as I kneel here before you, for I am not the dragonlord he was, born
to the purple, reared to command men. Mother Mary, I remember
well that until this summer I was Kyner's ward, trained to serve
like a faithful dog, to defend and obey my master. That is how

God prepared me for this task. As he has intended for me, 1 will
defend and obey. Only now, instead of one master, I serve a nation
of masters.

The Journey South

On the long ride south through the lake district and into the
hills of Cymru, Kyner pointed out baskets of cord woven
with shells and seed husks that appeared in the fields and
the fruit-heavy orchards. 'Ritual baskets, sire,' he complained,
riding up alongside King Arthor. 'Mabon — the ceremonies of
the fall equinox. The people provide food for the journey of
the Sun King who has become the Lord of Shadows, sailing
west and south toward winter.'

'Burn the fields marked by the pagan baskets,' Cei advised.

'A hungry winter will cure these peasants of their devil wor-
ship.'

'The old faith provides comfort at the coming of darkness,'

King Arthor reasoned. From his frightful journey into the
hollow hills, he knew that the gods these people worshiped
were real and worthy of respect. He also knew from his study
of the Roman classics that no religion was ever defeated by
malice. 'Let us live our faith with devotion and celebration,
and in time the people will see our Savior's merit.'

Kyner and Cei said nothing more but shared a worried,
dubious look.

In Viroconium, a flourishing market town of arched gate-
ways and brownstone ramparts, the townspeople received King

Arthor with harp and drum music, huge fires to warm the
waning sun, and tree dances in the.cobbled market squares.

The king partook jubilandy in the Celtic festival yet insisted
on conducting open-air Mass at which he required all the
townsfolk to attend. Each meal he preceded with a prayer
of thanks to the Lord. And on his tour of the countryside,
he took pains to visit the oudying households that displayed

Mabon baskets, preaching personally to the farmers the faith of
the apostles.

'I'm pleased with you, son,' Kyner said to Arthor the day
that the Roman highway they followed entered Cymru. 'You
honor our Savior in word and deed. And you were wise to
dismiss Merlin.'

Arthor looked surprised and turned in his saddle. 'I did
not dismiss him. I believe he has chosen to stay behind in

Camelot.'

'The pigeons that have carried us news of the elephants'

return to Camelot report nothing of the wizard,' Bedevere
observed.

'He is a demon,' Cei spoke from where he rode behind
his father. 'When you became king, his infernal master recalled
him to hell. We're better off without his unholy meddlings
and magic'

Arthor felt sudden alarm, having conveniendy chosen to
believe his wizard awaited him at the capital. 'Dispatch birds to
all our posts,' he ordered at once. 'Find out what has become of
our wizard.' He piaffed his horse to Cei's side. 'Merlin was once
a demon, Cei. But now he is a man and devoted to God. My
first day as king, he told me that whoever would serve heaven
must first conquer hell. Does that not speak of his true heart?

I believe he is our Lord's faithful servant.'

Cei remained silent for a moment, reluctant to openly
contradict his king. Finally, he narrowed his stare and spoke
up. 'Then if you want to find him,' he grumbled, 'I suggest
you begin your search in hell.'

The Hounds of Hell

Merlin, still in Dagonet's body, led Dagonet, himself in Lord

Monkey's body, out through the crooked doorway of the Nine

Queens. They emerged not in Avalon but in the ruins of an
abandoned Roman fort. Stubs of broken pillars outlined the
colonnade of the commander's quarters, but nothing remained
of the barracks and outbuildings save a few shallow depressions
in the earth where post-holes had been. An autumn breeze
swept dead leaves and a chill over the weed-choked earth.

Overhead, in an ashen sky, the sun appeared dark and small
as an apricot.

With a monkey shriek, Dagonet sprang behind Merlin. A
pack of wild dogs advanced from across the grassy courtyard.

Their rib-slatted flanks and glistening eyes bespoke perpetual
hunger.

Merlin glanced about for sanctuary, but the ruins offered
little cover. Only a cellar hole fringed with dodder some
paces away promised the hope of salvation. The dwarf grabbed
the monkey and sprinted for that vault as the pack charged
after them.

With a yelp of terror, Merlin forced all his strength into his
small legs. But his feet tangled on his long robes, and he fell
face-forward to the ground of faded mosaic. The scratching
of claws swarmed around him, and he expected hot fangs to
bite into his flesh at any instant. Flapping his big hat in meek
defense, the wizard rolled about. He saw then that the famished
pack had stopped only inches away, their carnal breaths laving
him with a sickening humidity, their canine faces leering with
withheld rage.

'Lailoken!' a caustic voice growled from the black dog nearest him. 'I knew we would meet again!'

Dagonet chittered in terror before the talking beast.

'You are a demon!' Merlin knew.

'Don't you recognize me?'

'I am much diminithed.' Merlin gestured at his dwarfed
body. 'I do not wecognithe you.'

'I, too, am much diminished, Lailoken,' the black dog snarled.

'After the pain I suffered on the battle plains of Londinium all those
years ago, I have had to take refuge in serpents, bats, and hungry dogs.

It has been a miserable time.'

The voice stirred in Merlin deep, ancient memories of his
aeonial existence as the demon Lailoken, when he had raged
against all form, all creatures assembled from matter as a travesty,
an abomination of the pure being they had known in the original
world before the universe exploded into the cold and dark of
the void. 'Athael?'

' Yes, Lailoken.' The cores of the black dog's eyes shone with a feverish light. 'lam your old cohort, Azael. And now that you recog-
nize me — lean tear your throat open and free you from thegutsack that
holds you. We will range free through the bestial world together, eventu-
ally gathering strength to join the others in the dark of space . . .'

Before the demon could say more or move to fulfill its
threat, Merlin pulled a diamond from the Dragon's hoard out
of his robe's pocket and jammed it into the beast's mouth. A
spiked flash of red energy blinded the dwarf and the monkey,
and when they could see again, they found the black dog fallen
to ashes on the mosaic as the rest of the pack yelped and trotted
away, tails tucked.

White Thorn

King Arthor felt tears burning in his eyes at the sight of the
timber-walled enclave of White Thorn, where cooking smoke
coiled above the treetops. The gates stood open, draped with
the last flowers of the season, and the clansfolk, among whom
he had grown tojtnaturity, surged forward cheering at the sight
of him under the Christian banner of chi-rho and wearing the
gold laurel of the high king.

The king allowed himself to be lifted from his steed and
carried into the setdement of his anonymous childhood. When
he had last left these crude wooden buildings in the heart of

Cymru, he had been a morose and reluctant servant. He had
hated himself. Life as a half-breed low-born upon whom the
chief had taken pity rankled. That was why he had thrown
himself so fearlessly into combat time and again for Chief

Kyner — hoping that he would die on the battlefield and
snatch some small honor for himself. Never could he have
guessed then that he would return to White Thorn as the
monarch of all Britain.

The celebrations were sweet. They lasted days. He was feted
by every household in the clan, and he apologized to each and
every one, servants included, for his truculent behavior of the
past. All were amazed by the lad's transformation. No longer
was he the bear they had feared and that only Kyner could
command. He had seemingly lost all rancor and moved with
warmth and caring among those who remembered him.

On a brisk autumn morning, Cei found the king strolling
alone in the golden shadows of the forest outside the enclave.

Bedevere, always within sight of his king, watched from under
a great fir and moved away silendy when he saw Cei arrive.

'You appear troubled, sire.'

Arthor looked up from his reverie, and his frown hardened
at the sight of his stepbrother. We're alone, Cei. Call me

Arthor.'

Well, then, Arthor — is it the storm raiders on the coast
that weigh down your shoulders?'

'They are a dark worry for me, Cei. But no. This morning,

I'm saddened by memory.' He motioned at a forest chamber
still green yet spangled crimson and gold. 'Do you remember
what happened in this grove?'

'It was only three winters ago,' Cei said with a hint of
impatience, unhappy with the recollection. 'We were hunting.

A dire wolf surprised us. I fled — you stood and killed it. At the
hall, you claimed I had slain the beast. I hated you for it.'

Arthor nodded and turned to stare squarely into deep eyes
under a blockbrow. 'If I'd told the truth, the magnificent skin
would have been hung in the servants' barracks. I wanted it
displayed where the chiefs and nobles would see it. So I lied.'

'Ah, now I see.' The gray eyes widened with understanding.

'I thought you had been noble and had lied to give me honor
before my father — you, a rapechild, giving me, the chiefs son,
honor! Ha! I wouldn't have it. But now, what you say shows
me how much alike we are.'

'And always were — and always will be, Cei.' He placed a
square-knuckled hand over his breast. 'I'm just a hungry heart
like everyone else — hungry for honor and respect. I'm not
noble. Not at heart. Only by name.'

Well, young brother,' Cei said with a knowing smile, 'some
sad day, your heart and its hungers will die with you and go
cold forever. But your name—' He placed his arm about his
stepbrother's shoulders and walked with him into the grove
where their misunderstanding had begun three winters and a
lifetime ago '—your name will warm the world.'

Mother Mary, I tried to tell my brother of my fears today. I confided
in him why I lied about the dire wolf. I wanted to tell him more —
about my doubts that I am worthy to be king — about Morgeu and the
shame of my lust — about my fear, my terrible fear that I will fail. But

Cei does not want to hear of my weakness. He is proud I am king. His
pride and his devotion to me are why I have officially appointed him
my seneschal. He will serve as a faithful steward of Britain, because
his faith in our Savior is strong. But I — I doubt I can confide in him
my most true feelings. For him and for all the people of Britain that
our Father has chosen me to serve, I must be king. And so, Mother

Mary, I pray to you to help me keep my doubts and fears to myself.

Love is first, so you have taught me. The love of a king is his strength.

I must be strong for those who believe I will protect them. But with you

I can be just who I really am — a boy who wants to be a man, a man
who strives to be a king, and a king who knows he is a boy.

The Storm Tree

The Lawspeaker led Gorlois by his nose into the alcove of a
vitiki, a Saxon seer. There, among hangings of scalps and an
array of skull cups, he selected a goat's horn and unstoppered
it. A stench of dead flesh oozed out.

'What are you doing?' Gorlois managed to gasp when the

Lawspeaker released his nose.

'Sendingyou to the Storm Tree, Merlin,' the aged counselor
said with a cackle. 'There you may discuss virtue with the gods
themselves if you wish. I've no ears for such talk. Go now!'

Before Gorlois could catch his breath and bring up a mighty
enough laugh to open the gates of power in the wizard's body,
the Lawspeaker jammed the open end of the goat's horn in
his mouth and emptied its fetid contents. He tried to spew
it out, but the old man clapped a hand over Gorlois's mouth
and grasped his nose. With a choking cry, he found himself
swallowing the evil elixir.

Instandy, he fled his body. The rainbow bridge spanned
before him, and he flew across its vibrant hues, rising from
the ruddy glow of the blood-light behind his lids, through
the yellow radiance of daylight, above the green forests and
into the blue sky. Terrified, he found himself among starry
pinwheels and misty shreds of cometary vapors. A rapturously
beautiful vista sprawled before him under flagrant stars and a
huge pocked moon: purple mountains and blue tree-roughs
that descended toward emerald meadows studded with lakes
of golden stillness.

A giant strode toward him across the dells, his blue cape
flowing translucent and furled as the starsmoke in the sky above.

At a glance, Gorlois recognized the wild, soot-streaked beard
and the eagle-hooked visage of the one-eyed god — traits made
famous in fable and song — 'The Furor!'

A dense fragrance of stormwind and lightning rolled from
the giant god as he advanced, boarskin boots carrying him across
leagues with each step. Oddly, as he paced closer, he seemed
to shrink. In moments, he stood an arm's length away, only
a head taller than Gorlois, and said in a deep, enclosing voice,

'We must talk.'

A Sea Journey

To demonstrate to Marcus Dumnonii that Lord Lot and his

Celtic warriors had been won to the King's Order, Arthor sailed
with Lot from Cymru to Hartland in Marcus's domain. Lot had
been reluctant to leave his gravid wife Morgeu alone in the
north, and he brooded over her well-being. As they sailed, he
clutched the lock of her red curls he wore on a leather thong
about his left bicep.

'I can see that you love my sister,' Arthor said to the
aged chieftain as they stood at the ship's taffrail, watching
the autumn-misted bluffs of Cymru drift away. 'She has given
you two fine sons.' The king glanced at Gareth sitting on the
binnacle box questioning the helmsman, who was showing

Gawain how to handle the tiller. That sight stirred a yearning
in him for a real family, and he spoke a half-truth: the true half
from his longing for genuine kinship — and the dark half from
his shock that his own sister had impregnated herself by him
for revenge. 'I share your sadness that Morgeu chose not to
join us. I would have liked to have met my mother with my
sister at my side.'

'Morgeu has little love for Ygrane since the queen became
a Cross-worshiper,' Lot spoke absendy, then caught himself
and faced the king with a solemn expression. 'Forgive me,
sire. I meant to say, Christian. N o w that I and my warriors
have pledged our fealty to you, we have sworn not to speak
ill of your faith.'

'You are forgiven — and more.' The king placed a hand on
the thick wrist of the chieftain. 'I offer you my gratitude for
your willingness to abide my faith.'

'Our concerns with the afterworld must not confuse our
thinking about this world or we will be easy prey for our shared
enemies.' Lot's leather face, both wide and lean, had the cast of a
true northman and his eyes a mean squint, yet a gleam of respect
kindled there. 'I care not if you worship the Fauni themselves
who drove my people's gods underground, for you have proven
yourself a worthy king at the Spiral Casde. I'll tell you true and
without shame, Arthor — had you abandoned Eufrasia, I'd have
called you a fraud to your face and pulled that pretty chaplet
from your head. But what you did and how you did it, alone,
taking full jeopardy upon yourself, is the deed of a true king. I
serve you with honor.'

A groan broke the conjoined stares of the old man and the
youth. Bedevere gripped the rail with his one hand and leaned
far out, pallid with seasickness.

'Tend to your aide,' Lot said, returning his attention to the
retreating headlands, 'and leave me to my prayers for my wife.'

Arthor strode across the swaying deck to where Bedevere
rolled his eyeballs and gasped. 'Have you no more tasty Saint

Martin's wort to steady your stomach, wayfarer?'

'Do not jibe me, sire,' Bedevere groaned. 'My qualms are
beyond herbal remedy.'

'And you a world traveler!'

'A traveler by land, sire - by land . . .'

'What word of Merlin?' Arthor gripped Bedevere's swordbelt
to keep him from toppling overboard. 'Have all birds returned?'

'From all points, sire. But no word of the wizard.' Bedevere
emptied his gorge into the churning sea below, gasped, spat,
moaned, and muttered, 'Merlin's fallen from the face of the
earth - and I'd as soon join him.'

Rex Mundi

The dwarf Merlin scooped up handfuls of the ashes remaining
of the black dog that the demon Azael had occupied. 'Ah, now

I thee why the Nine Queenth sent uth from Avalon to thith
plathe. They wanted uth to meet with Athael.'

The monkey Dagonet peeked out from the vault where he
had dived to hide from the slaverous hinds. He climbed out
and pranced nervously around the cinereous remnants of the
demon dog.

'You want to know why the Queenth thent uth to meet

Athael?' Merlin removed a ruby and sapphire from the Dragon's
pelf in the pockets of his robes. 'To work magic, Dagonet.

Magic!'

Dagonet squawked anxiously.

'Don't be afwaid.' Merlin tilted his hat so that sunbeams
basked the gems and ashes. 'Thee. Nothing'th happening yet.

I will explain what I'm about to do, and becauthe it ith
dangerouth and will put all our liveth at wisk I will do nothing
without your permithion. Agweed?'

Dagonet the monkey nodded his head nervously.

'The demon Athael ith not dead,' Merlin explained. 'He ith
thimply thtunned - and in thith dutht for now. By combining
in my magic hat hith dutht with the Dragon'th wubies and
thapphireth, I can athemble Wecth Mundi — King of the

World — Pwince of Darkneth! A demon in phythical form!

But not an evil demon. No. A demon who will obey uth.

In twuth, a demon who will be uth. With that power, we can
hunt down Gorlois, get my body back, and wethtore you and

Lord Monkey to your pwoper bodieth. Ith that good?'

Dagonet rocked his head uncertainly.

'Do you want to thtay a monkey?' Merlin shook the hat, and
the gems clinked with a musical sound. 'All I need ith a tuft of
monkey'th fur and a lock of thith hair. Once combined — poof!

We will become Wecth Mundi.' The wizard contemplatively
pinched his chin between thumb and forefinger, then added,

'Of courth, it ith very dangerouth. It ith your body and

Lord Monkey'th combined that we will occupy. If an enemy
killth uth, you and Monkey will die, Dagonet. Will you take
that withk?'

Monkey Dagonet stood up tall, put his fist to his heart like
an old Roman, and nodded.

'Good! Then let uth work magic' With a sharp edge of
rock, Merlin cut strands of monkey fur and a curl of red hair
from his head, twined the two together, and held them to the
sun. He met the monkey's anxious eyes, winked, and dropped
the braided lock into the hat.

ioo

A flash of blue fire outshone the sun for a blinding interval,
and in that glare, silhouettes of dwarf and monkey fused and
elongated, wobbling and stretching like firecast shadows. When
the magical radiance dimmed, a lone figure stood where before
there had been two - a tall man in midnight-blue robes with
a head of henna hackles, a stiff beard of black whiskers, and
a bestial visage, flat as a simian's, accented by silver twists of
eyebrow above a penetrating stare deep and dark as night.

The Furor's Mark

On a branch of the Storm Tree, high above the saffron deserts,
arterial rivers, and crumpled mountain ranges of the earth,

Gorlois cowered before the Furor. 'I am a Christian man!'

he wailed. 'Keep away from me, savage god!'

The Furor's one, storm-gray eye narrowed, and he spoke
in cold, measured tones. 'You have no love of your nailed god,

Gorlois — only of yourself. Y o u cannot hide your heart from
my all-seeing eye.'

Gorlois quailed. 'What do you want of me, dread god?'

Y o u have stolen the demon Lailoken's body.' A small smile
appeared in the Furor's massive beard. 'This is an opportunity
that the demon's enemies must not squander. We want him
dead, of course — his soul returned to the House of Fog from
whence he came.'

'Then - I will die.' Gorlois dared lift his head to meet the
chill stare of the north god. 'I don't want to die, All-Father!'

'So now I am All-Father to you, am I, Gorlois?' The

Furor shook his head disapprovingly. 'A moment ago, I was
the dread and savage god. But the thought of death has won
your affections for me, hasn't it?'

'I've been dead.' Gorlois wrung his hands at the thought. 'I
remember nothing. I was nothing. But I'm alive again. Don't
make me nothing.'

'Fear not, Gorlois. Y o u have a place for your soul in the
womb of your daughter. When Lailoken's body dies, you will
be free to live again, the son of your own child and sired by
the enemy who took your wife for his own. Oh, the poetry of
it.' The Furor's eye glittered with laughter. 'But we will not
slay Lailoken at once. His body is useful to us. And so I am
returning you to it.'

'Oh thank you, great god of the north. Thank you!'

'I am returning you to Lailoken's body with my mark upon
you — so that you will hear and see me as I wish.' The Furor
leaned closer, and the purple scent of thunder dizzied the mortal
man. ' Y o u will obey me in all things.'

'I will, yes. I will obey you.'

'For if you do not, Gorlois, I will yank you from the demon's
body and cast you into the Realm of the Dead for the goddess

Hel to do with as she pleases.' The Furor stepped back. 'Now
stand and receive my mark.'

Gorlois staggered upright and stood wobbling before the
huge and hugely bearded god.

The Furor drew his knife and slowly placed it against

Gorlois's forehead. 'Stand still, man. If I mar this, you will
go mad for all time. Stand still!'

Gorlois held himself rigid, and the cold blade of the Furor
pierced his brow.

Arthor and Ygrane

News of King Arthor came to Tintagel daily by carrier pigeon
and by travelers who arrived at the citadel of majestic white
stone towers and tiered turrets. Many of the wanderers were
pilgrims who came to worship at the shrine tended by the Holy

Sisters of the Graal. Those who had attended the five-year
festival at Camelot and had seen the young king themselves
described him in exaggerated detail so that by the time Marcus
of the Dumnonii escorted Lord Lot, Chief Kyner, and King

Arthor into the western audience room, where the Round

Table stood, Ygrane, the white-robed abbess, had no notion
what to expect.

Arthor was taller than she had guessed. Only sixteen years
old and beardless, he stood as tall as Kyner's giant son Cei, and
though not nearly as heavily muscled, he possessed an imposing
physical presence of long shoulders, muscular neck, and sturdy
limbs. His badger-brown hair, once cropped short as a Roman
centurion's, had begun to grow in and he wore it swept back
from a broad brow and a face that bore her own traits - a long,
straight nose and a wide jaw. Above his rosy cheeks, the yellow
eyes of his father gazed at her, bright with tears of joy.

At their embrace, she smelled past the musk of horse to a
darker, richer scent, as though sapphire had a fragrance - and
her mind whirled with half-forgotten, happy memories of Uther

Pendragon. She pulled away from him, her heart thudding. 'This
is my happiest day since I wed your father.'

Lot, Kyner, and Marcus acknowledged the king's mother,
then departed the audience room, and Bedevere followed and
closed the door after himself. Alone, mother and son stared
silently at each other for a long spell, and Ygrane touched his
face and memorized his lineaments with her fingertips and her
vivid green eyes. 'Every maiden in the kingdom will want you
for her own,' she spoke at last and smiled. 'Is there one yet who
has won your favor?'

'No, mother.' The sound of the word mother resounded in
him, for he had often referred to his patroness, the Virgin Mary,
by that tide — and here was his true mother in holy vestment.

Dread memory of Morgeu assailed him, and his hps trembled
to speak of his mortal sin, but he could find no voice to confess
that horror.

'The thought of love troubles you,' she observed and took
his hands in hers. 'Come. Sit with me at the table from where
you will resolve the conflicts of your people and tell me of
your pain.'

Arthor's mind spun as he sat down in an ebony chair
carved with a dragon and a unicorn. 'I don't know how to
begin

'Tell me her name.' Ygrane sat in the chair beside him and
put an understanding hand atop his clenched fists. 'She does
have a name, this woman who has inflicted such hurt on a heart
so young?'

'You know her name, mother.' Arthor searched her baffled
eyes to see if she understood.

'Is it me?' she guessed, and a needle of anguish pierced her
heart. The thought that her son's pain had its source in her
decision to surrender him as an infant stabbed her — not with
guilt, for she knew she had given him up for his own safety —
rather, she felt the hurt of having been deprived the chance to
love him as a child. 'Do you suffer because I sent you away so
very young and forced you to live motherless?'

' N o — ' His voice withered to an agonized whisper, and he
breathed the name that had cursed him. 'Morgeu - the woman
who hurts me is your daughter, Morgeu, my sister.'

The Ghost in the Fog

Night in the north isles of Lot's domain carried tumbling sea
fog out of the coves and up to the fir perches. Morgeu, wrapped
in the pelage of minks, wandered the cold, chanting smoke,
searching for her father's ghost, the soul of her child. A hungry
moon, like a snuffed wick, dwindled in the west and vanished
into phosphor depths.

'Morgeu — I am here,' a gruff voice called from the foggy
dark among the shaggy trees. 'I am marked. Shield your eyes.'

'Father?' Morgeu called and groped through the vaporous
night and knocked into a tree. 'Where are you?'

'Here.' Out of the emaciated starlight and shredded fog,

Gorlois's ghost appeared, his face carved to a terrifying pattern

- one eye set sideways at the center of his brow and in the empty
socket where that eye should have been his mouth mewled, his
chin yanked severely to one side by the displacement. 'Shield
your eyes, daughter. I am marked by the Furor.'

Morgeu's breath left her in one hot gust of smoke that
carried away a weak cry. 'By the gods! What has happened
to you?'

'The Furor—' His pale voice faded at the memory of the
pain. But the pain was gone now. In its stead, the future
lay all unhidden, and by the strength of the Furor's strong
eye he saw across the breadth of time into a future he did
not recognize — city wards of glass spires and horseless wag-
ons of bossed metal on roadways smooth as poured night.

And the stink, the caustic stench of the future burned his
lungs . . .

'Father, father — what has become of you?' Morgeu's hands
passed helplessly through the naked apparition.

Gorlois saw that time was an unavoidable straight road. Far
off across the centuries, he witnessed domelike glares char the
cities of glass to black outlines as though pieces of the sun had
fallen to earth. He lowered his gaze from the blinding pain
of apocalypse and focused closer to himself and his daughter

Morgeu. Time seemed no straight road here in the fog and
the essential light of the stars. Turning his head one way, he
glimpsed his daughter glossed in sweat holding the bloody rag
of a stillborn and seen from another tilted angle, the child thrived
at her breast.

'I am come at the Furor's bidding,' Gorlois announced. 'I
am come to serve the All-Seeing.'

At last, Morgeu understood. 'The Furor has marked you to
see what is yet to be.' She stepped closer to the mangled visage
of her father. 'Tell me, what do you see for me?'

'I see birth and death both.'

'Our future is yet to be decided,' she told him, her breath
snapping smoke with her excitement. 'How we fulfill the
unaccomplished will decide our future. Y o u must go back to
the Furor — let him guide you. Go back, father.'

Obediendy, Gorlois stepped away into the fog and joined
the darkness.

Berserkers

The salt works of Cawsand and the seaweed farms of Rameslie
provided the most lucrative exports of the Dumnonii after the
tin and silver mines, and Duke Marcus, and before him Duke

Gorlois, had taken great care to provide the best defenses for
those coastal towns. Warboats patroled the harbors and mounted
soldiers stood sentinel on the sea bluffs, ever vigilant for the
low-lying, flat-bottomed raiding sculls of the Saxons. No one
expected an attack by land.

Hunched like beasts among the hedges and vetch that
congested the hills at the forest fringe above the two towns,
several dozen storm raiders waited for noon. They were Wolf

Warriors, devoted to the Furor and dedicated to dying in
batde. Four nights before, shrouded by the new moon, they
had landed on remote beaches and buried their boats in the
dunes. Traveling only in darkness, they had reached the two
bustling ports undetected.

At the moment that the sun attained its zenith, when the
horror of their assault and the bravery of their sacrifice was
most fully illuminated, the Wolf Warriors descended on their
prey. They did not charge at first but merely strode down
the hill paths, their heads high, red and gold manes brushed
back by the sea breezes, war-axes carried casually across their
shoulders. Naked but for thongs and sandals, they seemed
mortally vulnerable.

Even when the boatwrights and net-weavers in the sandy
lots behind the towns first spotted the Saxons and shouted
alarms, the Wolf Warriors did not hurry their assault. Their
relaxed approach to batde won them respect among the gods.

The doom of Rameslie and Cawsand was foreordained by
the very presence of the Wolves, and there was no need to
squander their strength until what they had come to destroy
was in their grasp.

The screaming townsfolk fled onto the strand, for the

Wolves had fanned out to block all inland escape routes.

The Furor had decreed that none were to be spared his killing
frenzy save what the sea took for its own. Once within the
town precincts, the Saxons smashed hearths and clay ovens
and set fire to the cottages, the market stalls, and the dry
docks. The mounted soldiers who charged down from the
sea bluffs to defend the town rode into baffling smoke and
whirling batdeaxes.

The killing went swiftly. After hacking the legs of the
blinded and confused horses and gutting the riders, the Wolves
overturned the salt boilers, smashed the drying racks, and
ran all howling and soot-streaked down upon the townsfolk,
fishermen, and salt pedlars crowding into the oncoming tide.

To the Christians, the barbarous, bellowing hordes plunging
out of the roiling vapors of the wind-whipped flames were a
brimstone reckoning come to gather their souls to hell, and
many died on their knees praying for salvation even as their
heads flew from their shoulders.

By the time the warboats came to shore to engage the
enemy, they had to shove through jammed shoals of corpses,
the floating bodies of their families. The horror defeated them,
and the Wolves easily punctured their hulls with their mighty
axes and dragged the floundering sailors onto the beach by their
hair, the better to flay their flesh for the war drums.

The Graal

Ygrane listened aghast to her son's account of Morgeu's decep-
tive seduction of him and the conception of their incest child.

When he concluded and, with a sob, lay his shamed face in
his hands atop the Round Table, she stood and walked away.

To an elaborately carved cabinet she retreated and opened its
mahogany doors of inlaid mother-of-pearl to retrieve from its
velvet-padded interior the Holy Graal. The good Sisters of

Arimathea'— who were none other than the Nine Queens of

Avalon — had bequeathed the sacred vessel to her and Uther
on a Christmas morning sixteen years ago.

The slender goblet of gold-laced chrome contained within
its precious metal exterior the actual glazed clay cup from
which Yeshua ben Miriam had drunk wine in celebration
of Passover and his coming sacrifice five centuries ago. The

Annwn, the Fire Lords of supercelestial origin, had preserved
the cup in an elegant covering of incorruptible chrome and
gold filigree that somehow retained a magical charge of holy
power. Ygrane prayed that this blessed magic would heal her
son's acute suffering.

She placed the Graal in front of him, and even before he
raised his head, King Arthor felt its grace. Like grape pressings
darkening to wine in barrels, the squeezings of his heart — his
memories of lust and shame - began to deepen, like a slow
dusk, to something more soulful.

While he gazed at his stricken reflection in the mirroring
surface of the Graal, his mother spoke softly to him of the

Nine Queens. 'They dwell as spirit beings now, on Avalon,
the ancient ceremonial site from where the Celtic gods once
reigned before the Fauni drove them underground into the

Dragon's lair. The Annum - the angels of God — placed them
there to witness the present, so that they may help change the
soul of the future.' She brushed a tear from his smooth cheek.

'Someday, when you die, you will be installed there, and the
eldest queen shall be set free to return to the rhythmic duration
of death and rebirth. I swear this to you by all that is holy. Y o u
will represent these past ten thousand years of rule by kings,
emperors, caesars, pharaohs, and chieftains.'

Arthor faced his mother and saw in her tristful stare the truth
of what she said.

'You will serve the angels,' she said, 'and humankind for all
that may remain of our future . . . "

'Until the Second Coming.' Arthor understood. 'The

Apocalypse of The Revelation.'

'Which is what our enemies' god, the Furor, calls Ragnarok,
the Twilight of the Gods.' She took his hand in a consoling
grasp. 'So you see, your personal pain - the mistakes of the
heart from your past and their consequence, however horrible

-these are your personal suffering. They are the shadow cast by
the light of your radiant being. Y o u must accept them, Arthor.

Y o u must accept their shame and their hurt without allowing
those terrible feelings to betray who you really are by swaying
your actions.' She released his hand and placed hers upon his
chest. 'Let that evil that is peculiarly your own remain here,
confined within the borders of your heart.'

In a Dark Way

R e x Mundi walked the earth. Dagonet, Lord Monkey, Merlin,

Azael, and a nameless Fire Lord drifted alertly within this
gruesome amalgamated being's interior space. The Fire Lord
and the demon Azael circled each other in a perpetual stand-off.

The countervailing tension between them would turn them
round about each other for a thousand millennia, and the
magical strength that spun from them sustained the improbable
shape of the Dark Prince.

Meanwhile, Merlin contemplated how to recover his own
body from Gorlois. Dagonet gazed at the world, astonished
to find himself so tall and so powerful. And Lord Monkey
wondered what next he would eat.

Into the distances of the afternoon, R e x Mundi wandered,
seeking to orient himself. Merlin, years before in his quest to
find Uther Pendragon, had criss-crossed all of Britain, and he
knew every vista in the land. We are not far from Rameslie, he observed from the rolling terrain and directed their attention to a
field of sunlight between two ridges of aboriginal forest. Through
that notch, the seatown awaits. They make excellent fishcakes.

Lord Monkey widened their stride at the news of food.

What will the townfolk make of uth? Dagonet inquired. Are we
not a tewible thight? He glanced down at their hands, fleshed in leathery hide and thick, sparse wires of hair.

They are good, hard-working Christians, Merlin addressed

Dagonet's concerns. If we praise our Savior and cause no trouble,
we will be accepted despite our unconventional aspect.

With Lord Monkey's eagerness to reach his first meal
since munching an apple in Avalon, R e x Mundi made swift
progress along the neatherd's paths across the pastureland. By
late afternoon, they climbed a knoll that overlooked Rameslie,

•and there confronted the grisly remains of the Wolves' slaughter.

Black, smoldering ash outlined where the town had once stood.

Scattered upon that dark field glowed dozens of pink melons —
the scalped skulls of the townsfolk.

Lord Monkey and Dagonet skittered with fright and tried
to run away, but Merlin's stronger will held them fast. 'This is
the Furor's doing,' he spoke aloud, his voice dense with grief.

'He boldly challenges our new king.'

Let uth away, Merlin! Dagonet whinnied in terror. The
waiderth may yet be here!

'Oh that they were, Dagonet,' Merlin droned with regret.

'Then you would see real devil's work.'

Vampyre

Morgeu rode by night. She drove a wagon south, determined to
find the soul that had served her father and that she had chosen
to quicken the child in her womb. She knew from the mangled
apparition that she had seen of Gorlois that the Furor had marked
him - and that meant that he was in the grasp of the north tribes.

Only the land of the Picts to the north and the domain of the

Cantii in the south-east were occupied by the Furor's people, and
her trancework told her that the Picts did not hold him.

Though the highways were rife with potholes and slewed
by the frosts of seventy winters and hazardous to ride by dark,

Morgeu traveled fearlessly. The horse that pulled her wagon
she endowed with night vision, and she herself scanned the
landscape with eyes that shone crimson from their pupils.

The very stones of the highway blazed up before her magic
gaze.

By day, she pulled the wagon behind hedges or into a dense
copse and slept. She dreamt the secret life of the unborn that
swam soullessly within her. Under the dark archway of blood,
she swam upstream toward the dream wall of the uterus, greedy
to suck at the root-blood of the mothers that would mute its
memories of the sea and the fish-thrash, eager to drink the
salt-milk that would impart the knowledge it needed to be
human . . .

On her third night of travel, a man pale as moonlight and
with a courteous face stood in the roadway. The horse shied
from him. Morgeu knew his morbid character at once. 'Finally!'

She threw down the reins and sat back with a look of relief. 'I've
been looking for you.'

'And I for you, lady in red.' The pale man coughed gendy.

'Will you come down to me? Or shall I come to you?'

She beckoned with her ringed fingers. 'Do come.'

In an eyeflash, the man sat beside her, and the horse jolted
with fright and rocked the tented wagon. Morgeu hushed it
with a soft whisde. 'You have a commanding way with animals,'

he complimented her.

Morgeu allowed a small smile. 'I have a way with all'manner
n o
of things.' She noticed that the shadowless man wore a beautiful
tunic of a lost time, a white garment stitched with intercoiling
serpents, leaping dolphins, and a large butterfly of the soul at the
center of his breast — a burial garment. 'You are an old one.'

'Older than you can guess, lady.' He placed a cold hand on
her thigh, and her whole body chilled.

'Oh, nothing is quite that old.' A bemused laugh spilled from
her. 'I would guess you came to this frontier four centuries ago,
with the second legion, Legio Adiutrix, under Agricola — but not as a commander or even a soldier.' She stared hard into his
narrow, surprised face. 'You have the gende countenance of a
mercantile aristocrat. Have I surmised correcdy, Terpillius?'

The ghosdy man pulled away, and fangs glinted at the
corners of his gaping mouth. 'What creature are you that
reads souls?'

'I?' Morgeu reached out and firmly took the startled stran-
ger's cold wrist in her hot hand. 'I am your mistress.'

Mother Mary, I have needed time to think of what to say to you after all
that I learned from my mortal mother, Ygrane. She is a good woman,
more fair of soul and face than I had dreamt since I first learned of her
at Camelot. She loves your Son as I do. She lives as He has taught
us. Her days are spent tending to the sick and the impoverished of the
countryside about the fastness she has converted to an abbey. The Holy

Graal has been entrusted to her, elaborately caparisoned in chrome and
gold by the angels themselves. She is truly a woman of holiness. And
yet — and yet, Mother Mary, she speaks to me of Avalon, the Isle
of Apples, the Nine Queens and rebirth, the transmigration of souls

— matters that seem more pagan than Christian. Though the angels
themselves have set the Nine Queens to watch over us, these are pagan
royalty. Ah, but then your Son has been with us only these past five
centuries and the youngest of the Queens is over ten thousand years
old. Perhaps, then, that is why our Father has chosen me to dwell
among them when I die, to deliver to them the good news. But what
of my soul? What of the Lord's promise of my salvation? Surely, that
is vouchsafed me, even if I must dwell as a ghost among ghosts for
thousands of years to come. Christians do not transmigrate, do we?

i n

The priests say no. We are not rebom again and again among endless
forms as the Celts believe. Forgive me, Mother Mary, for bringing you
these worries. I know not where else to take them. If only Merlin were
here with me. I fear he is dead. How else to explain his absence? He
did not arrange for me to become king simply to abandon me. I must
assume he is with you now. I am to fathom on my own the mysteries
that Mother Ygrane shares with me — if only there were — time - to
fathom these wonders. The invaders swarm along the coast. They know

I am here among the Dumnonii, and they attack to challenge me. Pray
for me, Mother Mary. Pray that God will grant me the clarity and
strength to defend our island kingdom.

Marcus Bloodied

The massacres at Cawsand and Rameslie enraged Marcus

Dumnonii, and he ignored King Arthor's pleas to counsel
with him and the two chieftains, Lot and Kyner. Impatient
to track down the Saxons who had destroyed his two most
productive seatowns, he led a mounted force along the coast.

Arthor shouted after him from the ramparts of Tintagel, but
the Duke had not given his pledge and was not bound to honor
that man-child's commands.

'We must follow him!' Cei insisted when Arthor, frowning
darkly, came down the bastion's stone steps. 'Lead our troops!'

Arthor shook his head. 'The troops must rest. The march
from the north has exhausted them.'

The experienced chiefs, Kyner and Lot, nodded in agree-
ment with the king's sage assessment of his forces.

Cei threw his hands up with a disgruntled shout. 'Then
what hope of winning the Duke's pledge if you leave him to
fight his own battles? Think like a warrior, not like one of
these tired old men.' He nodded cursorily to Kyner. 'Forgive
me, father.'

'I'll not forgive such impudence!' Kyner shouted at his oafish
son. 'The king is right. Marcus is not hunting down Foederatus
troops. Those are berserkers out there. Wolf Warriors. They've
not come to Britain to steal land but to die.'

'By nightfall, Marcus will feed the ravens,' Lot predicted
and turned to cross the courtyard to the barracks, where
his clansmen anxiously awaited the command of their new
king.

As Lot had foreseen, Marcus found httle spoor of the raiders
until late in the day. From out of the long light of the evening,
the Wolves emerged from where they had hidden in the dunes.

They had known that the destruction of the two ports would
provoke an army of revenge, and they had read the land
accurately enough to place themselves direcdy in its path at
the hour of two worlds.

Marcus ordered his cavalry to charge along the high rimland
above the sea plain and so sweep down lethally upon the Saxons.

But the Wolves had anticipated this, and during their daylong
wait for their escorts to Skyward House, they had patiendy
severed the hundreds of thick roots that secured the edge
of the rimland to the forest beyond. Under the weight of
the charging horses, the entire escarpment collapsed, sending
horsemen toppling onto the plains below, where the Wolf

Warriors waited with their honed axes.

• With a shocked cry that emptied his lungs, Duke Marcus
watched from the forest edge as horses and men tumbled
through billowing sand and dirt to where the berserkers danced,
their axes flashing in the scarlet light of day's end. He bolted
forward, but he quickly saw the futility of his sacrifice and pulled
back. He had committed the bulk of his force to the charge and
all that remained were himself, the mounted drummers, and
two surgeons.

Pacing his steed angrily on the high ground above the
collapsed scarp, he watched through burning tears as the Wolves
danced in the crimson light and left behind the broken shapes
of his soldiers before disappearing in the sudden rush of dark.

The Furor's Man

Gorlois awoke still ensconced in Merlin's body, alert and brisk,
but he found himself sitting in a pit naked, mired in feces and
dead leaves. A cry from above yanked his attention to the top
of the pit, where a red-bearded face glanced down at him and
pulled away, shouting again in Saxon dialect, 'The Furor's Man
is awake!'

One glance was enough for Gorlois to see into that man's
private dream - Vagar of Gelmir's Clan, proud of his lance arm,
fearful of betrayal by his damaged left knee . . .

The Lawspeaker appeared overhead, his bald head bobbing
and leering with satisfaction. Images from his heart rushed
through Gorlois, and he saw the brute chords of danger this
man played on the instrument of his body - harrowing fasts
and trance potions.

'Stand back, Hjuki the Lawspeaker,' Gorlois called and lifted
his hands above his head. 'Stand back and pour the cisterns!'

The Lawspeaker moved out of sight, and a moment later,
as Gorlois had foreseen, several large men stepped to the brink
carrying big vats of water that they poured over him. The
cascade rinsed away the fetor of grime that plastered him, and
moments later, a knotted rope fell to his expectant hands and
pulled him out of the pit.

The slow pulses of the sun beat in everything he saw,
illuminating the deepest recesses. The Furor had marked his
soul with the strong eye and had granted him the power to
see the truth of everything he looked at. His upheld hands
revealed the truth of himself: the ghost of a bold ravisher in
flesh woven by Fire Lords, whom the Celts called Annum,
meaning The Otherworld, as if those radiant entities were not individual beings but manifestations of a supercelestial realm.

And they were. He saw that. In the grain of Merlin's skin,
he perceived their solitary, purposeful love for the Origin, the
source of infinite energy from which this cosmos had emerged
thousands o f m i l l i o n s of years ago in an explosion of pure light
so intense no form could exist at all until the cold, dark vacuum
had chilled light to matter . . .

The Lawspeaker pulled Gorlois's hands from his staring eyes,
and the guards scrubbed his body with pumice stone and lathery
sponges and doused him with water scented with aromatic
woodruff. While they dressed him in the Furor's colors - loose
black trousers, orange bodice stitched with jet raven signs, a
red jerkin with onyx buttons, and wolfskin boots — he gazed
into the Furor's face among the soaring clouds. One arctic eye
stared back. In its gray depths, he witnessed the future — the
swarming hours of the days ahead, the journey north to the
cluttered rivertown of Londinium, the surly, Persian eyes of

Severus Syrax . . .

'Do not peer too deeply, Raven's Man,' the Lawspeaker
advised. 'What you will see there will break you.'

Gorlois heeded that counsel and shifted his penetrating gaze
across the broad face of the Furor to his other eye, the empty
socket in whose blackness floated all mortal beings, a glittering
dew on the great web of life, each creature reflecting its own
small spark of original light within the darkness of death.

Saved by the Devil

Through the hazy morning mists, Marcus Dumnonii led back
toward Tintagel those sorry few that remained of his warparty

— two surgeons and several drummers. The drums had been left
behind in the forest, where the survivors had lain under cover of
darkness all night. They had feared that the berserkers who had
slain their company would stalk them by starlight, and they all,
including the Duke, had hobbled their horses and lain hidden
under leaves farther away. At first light, they had untied their
steeds and moved on.

Duke Marcus followed a longer route to the citadel, along a
forest path, believing they were safer from sight of their enemies
in the woods than along the coast. But the Duke was wrong.

The Wolf Warriors had spent the night among the dunes and
by false dawn had moved inland to kill whomever they crossed.

They met Marcus in a grove drizzling with morning light.

The batde shouts of the Wolves defeated the helpless cries
of the Duke's small party, and only the horses screamed louder
as their legs broke under the slashing blows of heavy axes. The

Duke plunged to the ground with his steed, sword raised high.

He cried with shrill fervor for God's mercy when the fallen
horse broke his left leg and pinned him under its dead weight.

A berserker with the severed head of a drummer in one hand
knocked the sword from his grasp with one swipe of his ax and
brought the blade down in a flashing arc.

Before the keen edge could cut, a hand of leathery hide and
wiry hair snatched the helve and twisted the ax from the Saxon's
grip. The Duke, buckling in pain, saw a tall, hideous man with
hackles of red hair, a brisdy black beard, and a feral, almost bestial
face. The monster yanked the berserker's arm from its socket
with a wet, tearing noise. Marcus saw blood splatter across the
sigil-marked robes of Merlin. Then, the pain of his broken leg
blacked his mind.

R e x Mundi tore among the Wolf Warriors with savage
speed and murderous fury. Merlin had released Azael from his
circling bond with the Fire Lord, and the demon used R e x to
make quick work of the Saxons. In moments, fourteen warriors
lay mangled on the forest floor. Then, the wizard summoned

Azael back into the magically assembled body he had created
from Dagonet and Lord Monkey — but the demon would not
obey. With an icy howl, Azael rushed off through the woods,
bound to work ill against the king in Tintagel.

'Oh gwief!' Dagonet cried, sensing Azael's purpose.

'Calm yourself,' Merlin soothed. 'If we move quickly in the
opposite direction from the king, Azael must follow — for if too much
distance comes between us, our assembled body will fall apart, and the
demon will become again the ashes of a dog. Come!'

Dagonet and Merlin turned away from the broken bodies
of the dead and the whimpering surgeons and drummers yet
alive. With a lumbering gait, they moved R e x Mundi eastward,
relying on the Fire Lord within to hold them together. The cries
of the Christian survivors followed them a long way among
the trees.

Knives Against the King

Azael had little time to work mischief before the retreating R e x

Mundi lured him back into his circling stand-off with the Fire

Lord. He reached into Tintagel with icicle fingers of fear and
grabbed at the hearts of Lot's Celts. The motions of these small
bits of awareness were easy to manipulate, and in moments, he
had inflamed four warriors to a rabid hatred of the boy-king,
the fool who despised their venerable faith and worshipped an
alien, nailed god. Dark looks passed among them, and Azael
gloated at the consequences he read there before he departed.

No murderous opportunity presented itself to the fervid

Celts until midday. While the chiefs and their men gathered in
the main hall to eat, with Kyner presiding over the Christians
and Lot among the Daoine faithful, the young king sat in chapel
with his mother and her nuns. A musty lingering of incense in
the air steeled the four assassins to their grim intent, to end the
influence of this foreign god, and they slipped silendy through
the burgundy shadows that fell from the leaded glass windows.

Their footfalls muffled by the sussurant prayers of the nuns, two
killers approached along each side of the dim tabernacle, knives
bared, held low, ready to slash upward and gut their enemy.

The king had left his famous sword on the altar, where
two small licks of flame in crimson lampions fluttered at either
end. Unarmed, he knelt on a faldstool with Ygrane, who also
would die for betraying the Daoine Sid and for abandoning her
role as queen of a people far more ancient than the Romans.

The nuns, absorbed in their prayers, paid no heed to the four
half-naked intruders. The assassins strode through the chancel
gate and descended on the kneeling couple. But before they
could strike, a shadow stirred suddenly from the stillness as
though one of the pieces of statuary had come to life.

Bedevere slid swiftly across the marble, inserting himself
between the knives and their victims. In his one hand, he
grasped a short sword that flashed in the dark air like a
spurt of flame. Clanging sharply, two knives spun free and
clattered to the floor. An agilely swift flourish of the short
sword carved loops of reflected light with a viper's hiss and
stalled the other two armed Celts in their tracks. Before they
could flee, he jumped close enough to cut their throats. 'Knives!'

he shouted, and the two remaining weapons clanked against the
stone floor.

The alarmed shrieks of the nuns brought soldiers running
from the casde ward, swords drawn. 'Shed no blood in this holy
place!' King Arthor commanded. He strode to where Bedevere
had grouped the four enraged Celts. 'Why?'

The ire in their cold eyes told him what their voices refused
to say. When Lot arrived and ragefully ordered them taken into
the courtyard, they exited tall with defiance.

'Brother!' Arthor called to Lot, and when the old warrior
turned, said firmly, 'Do not take their lives. Release them from

Tintagel and our service — unharmed.'

The Root-Blood

By day, Morgeu tended the horse that pulled her tented wagon,
bathed herself in the chill creeks under the noon sun, ate what
the orchards and vegetable crofts along the highway had to offer,
and dozed under the trees. She kept Terpillius the vampyre
inside the wagon, covered with loamy soil. At night, he rode
beside her and told her amusing tales of Old Britain.

Occasionally, she let him roam for blood, but only with the
stern understanding that he sate himself on Christians alone. He
did not dare defy her, because she could read everything in his
soul. The shadows spoke with her. And at her touch, his cold
body either sang or cried.

Usually, she kept him close by and fed him with the
root-blood of the soulless child in her womb. While she
steered the wagon, he lay with his head in her lap, eyes
closed, drawing hot strength directly from within her, from
the source of the blood itself. On clear nights, he opened his
eyes to the Great Bear, and his darkness matched the vacancies
he saw there.

'That is the fear of all vampyres,' she replied to his thoughts.

'There is no place for you in the Happy Woods, no path to
the Skyward House, no acceptance with the nailed god who
preached love but who damns with hellfire. Only emptiness
awaits at the end of your hunger.'

'I dream, I dream — emptiness would be sweet—'

'But not as sweet as blood, the warmth kindled by the star
candles and forgotten in the seas for so very long.' She stroked
his silken hair with one hand as she drove. 'Forgotten until
the first jungles remembered and from Stardust, from the iron
seeds sown in the death throes of stars, grew the red vine, the
root-blood you suckle. I know this. I have seen it.'

He trembled with immemorial passions to hear her speak
so. And even if he could have fled her ensorceling grasp, he
would not have. Eyes closed, he pressed his face against her
womb, and her radiant warmth embraced him as she embraced
her soulless child, filling his body with unworldly joy. Many
nights of travel passed before he even thought to ask, 'Why
do you cosset me, mistress? Why have you taken me from my
place in the forests of the north?'

'We have a work to do, TerpiUius.' Her small, black eyes
hardened like bits of coal. 'A work of blood. Hot, wet work.'

'And when the work is done, mistress?' He did not dare
open his eyes, for fear of the evil, indifferent smile he would
see. 'What will become of us?'

'Become?' Her voice carried a chill laugh. 'That word
bespeaks a future. And for vampyres there is no such thing.'

Four hundred hours of autumn with her, after four hundred
years without her were enough to assuage his fears. He kept his
eyes closed and his face pressed to the root-blood, to the tinier
world within her, the forever world before time, when all life
was a vampyre.

Secret House

'Mother, why did Lot's men want to kill me?' Arthor somberly
asked Ygrane that evening when they were alone on the western
terrace with the Round Table and the Graal. 'You must know
their minds. Y o u were once their queen.'

Ygrane rose from where she had been sitting next to her
son, talking about his father, Uther Pendragon. She walked to
the balustrade and watched the sun finding its way into the sea.

'Merlin and I thought it best you were reared a Christian. But
if you are to rule the Celts as well as the Britons, you must find
in yourself what is more ancient than your faith.'

' Y o u — an abbess — instruct me to seek the pagan?' Arthor
asked with open disbelief. 'Mother, I have been inside the
hollow hills. I have seen the faerie, conversed with the dwarf

Brokk who crafted Excalibur, and even confronted the Furor
himself. But I tell you, these are all created beings of our
uncreated and nameless God, the God of Moses - God the

Father of our Savior. This is our faith, the faith expounded in
the gospels of the Apostles. It is that faith that guides me — not
pagan lore.'

She faced him across the Round Table, her eyes like a green
fire in the dying light - and her white vestments might as well
have been the worship robes of a priestess. 'You are my son
and king of the people for whom I once served as queen, and
so I speak to you from a higher place than faith.'

'Higher than faith?' Arthor reared forward, dizzy with incre-
dulity. 'What could possibly be higher than our faith?'

'God - God Himself

Arthor blinked. 'Mother, you speak heresy.'

'Listen to me, son. Faith is learned. But our souls are given.

You carry within you the soul of Cuchulain, the greatest warrior
of the Celts. God wills for you to reign as a Christian king. And
yet, in your soul you carry lifetimes of a more ancient faith.'

'Lifetimes?' Arthor blew a gust of surprise. 'Mother, listen
to yourself. Y o u sound like some blasphemous gnostic. We are
each of us one life, one soul given to the glory of God.'

'This is true, Arthor. But there is a greater truth.'

'Truth — yes.' He sighed, recalling the long hours of reading
and discussing philosophy that Kyner had required of both him
and Cei. 'Truth has many sides. But what is the greater truth
than the one life we have for God?'

'The destiny He gives to each one of us is unique and
carries its own truth. That is the secret house of your spirit,
greater than the abode of your soul. The soul needs a body.

But the spirit moves like the wind and belongs solely to God.'

She walked around the table and sat down beside him again.

Y o u r destiny is to serve the Christians as well as the Celts of
the Old Way. As your mother, it is my destiny to show you
both ways. With Merlin's and Kyner's help, you have lived as
a Christian. Now, it is time for me to show you the older ways.

God is God of all. To serve Him, you must open your heart to
everyone.'

'What do you expect me to do, mother?' Arthor frowned.

'I will not defy the teachings of our Savior.'

'I would never ask that of you.' She took his chin in her
hand. 'But I do require you to fulfill his greatest teaching. While
you are here, before you depart, I want you to know love.'

Mother Mary, I am troubled by what I hear from your servant, my
mother Ygrane. I am no theologian. What do I know of our Father's
will but what He reveals to me through the Holy Spirit? Yet, if I
am to be king of all Britain, I must serve the pagan Celts as well
as the Christians. I thought I could serve them by bringing to them
the good news of our Savior. But my mother speaks of their faith as
more ancient, as if Jesus had never walked among us and refuted the
old ways of blood sacrifice with his own blood. There is much I must
ponder and so little time for reflection. My days are, consumed from
dawn till midnight with war councils. Soon I must lead what forces I
have against invaders who give their lives freely and fiercely for what
they believe. Pray for my protection, Mother Mary — not for my sake
but for those whom I serve that I may continue to protect them from
the ferocity of our enemies.

God Finds Her Champion

Durnovaria, a sizeable town of green and blue tile roofs, stood
at the intersection of several Roman roads in the Celtic domain
of the Durotriges. Though the neighboring Dumnonii, Duke

Marcus's subjects to the west, had been Christian for gener-
ations, Durnovaria and the surrounding countryside harbored
ancient enclaves where people still worshiped the Daoine Sid
and the Fauni. Chief among these sites was Maiden Casde,
whose gigantic earthwork entrenchments and ramparts enclosed
a temple on a hillcrest devoted to the goddess Aradia.

R e x Mundi stood among the aspen trees that surrounded

Aradia's temple, listening for prophecy in the whispering leaves.

Merlin had directed their assembled form to this summit,
hoping to detect some sign of where Gorlois had taken the
wizard's body. The telluric energies of this sacred location
were powerful, no doubt the reason why the old tribes had
first built settlements upon this ceremonial ground thousands
of years ago. "While Merlin listened and Dagonet looked out
beyond the temple's earth walls at the farm fields and Lord

Monkey fidgeted, yearning for fruit, the Fire Lord broke loose
from his circle-turning stand-off with the demon Azael.

Azael had no strength for voice - all his power was con-
sumed in holding the assemblage together — yet his scream
tore like claws through Merlin, Dagonet, and Lord Monkey.

R e x Mundi fell to his knees with a howl. What ith happening?

Dagonet bawled. We die!

We are not dying — not yet, Merlin assured his companion.

The Fire Lord has left us, left Azael to hold us together. But fear
not. The demon will keep Rex whole. If he does not, he will revert
to a dead dog and then can only slowly rebuild himself from ashes.

But it hurth! Dagonet cried. And it did indeed, for without
the Fire Lord to counterbalance the demon, Azael's pain was
unmitigated: the mortals experienced the sundering cold of
the vacuum in which the celestial orbs spun, the stabbing cold
that assailed demons and Fire Lords alike since they fell from
heaven.

The Fire Lord suffered, too. As with all who had been flung
into the darkness of creation when they followed God out of
heaven, he knew pain. But that ceaseless agony did not embitter
him as it did the demons, who had flung away their light so they
would hurt less. The Fire Lords embraced their burning pain
all the more tightly and suffered worse than demons, because
they believed that the radiant pieces of heaven they still carried
would eventually lead them back home.

For now, the Fire Lord's light led him to Her, to God, who
needed a champion for a moment. She had arranged an open
grave for one of her most devoted — a woman worshiper in the
temple. But the worshiper's husband was angry and would not
let his wife go in peace. God summoned the Fire Lord to still the
husband's cries with his warmth. The man's momentary smile
when he experienced the angel's caress was all the dying woman
needed to serenely release her body and rejoin the ever-turning
cycle of coming and going.

Burning Isca

Purple storm winds blew the invaders' small boats up the Exe
river and past the frustrated coastal defenders, who were helpless
against the surging waves and torrential rain. Protected by
the Furor and their own peerless maritime skills, the Saxons
swept along the eastern banks of the river ten miles without
a single arrow flying against them, and the storm front flung
them into the port city of Isca Dumnoniorum, Duke Marcus's
largest harbor.

The dock workers fought to protect their wharves and their
homes but were no match for the ferocity of the Furor's troops.

With the tempest at their backs, the Saxons clambered onto the
moored ships, hacked their way across the harbor with their
big axes and small, lethal thro wing-hatchets, and set fire to
the piers. Even as the attackers mounted the Roman walls that
separated the anchorage from the town, the wind-whipped
flames preceded them.

Duke Marcus saw the scarlet glow of the burning port from
the hamlet of Neptune's Toes, where he had been carried by
the surgeons after their ambush in the forest. Cei arrived the next
day, shortly after heralds delivered grisly reports of the sacking of

Isca and the slaughter of hundreds: Their headless corpses had
been strung upside down from the high arches of the aqueducts
that delivered irrigation water to the outlying farmlands — estates
that now quailed in horror, awaiting the arrival of the brutal
conquerors.

'Where is your brother?' Marcus shouted at the sight of Cei,
and only the pain of his broken leg restrained him from lunging
at the large Celt. 'I've lost three towns! People will starve this winter for what I've lost! Arthor dines with his mother while
people are dying. Dying! Do you hear me, you big oaf?'

'My lord duke—' Cei struggled for what to say in the face
of this righteous rage. At the news of Marcus's defeat, Arthor
had dispatched him to escort the duke safely back to Tintagel,

A . A . A T T A N A S I O
but Cei could see that this commander wanted battle plans,
not retreat. 'At least you are alive and will lead your men
again . . .'

'Do you know why I'm alive?' Marcus thrashed upright
from the pallet where he lay on the olive-tree-arbored terrace
overlooking a bay of tiny islets, the toes of Neptune. 'I live
because Merlin saved me. Y o u go back to Tintagel and tell
your brother that he has to do better than send a wizard too
late to save my troops. A wizard who looks possessed by Satan!

If Arthor wants my pledge, he must commit more than magic to
our cause. He must fight our enemies with strategy and sword!'

Marcus fell back, his blond hair scattering like a veil over his
face. 'Bring soldiers, not devils.'

Cei left the terrace, and on his way across the mosaic
courtyard of the old villa, a surgeon accosted him. 'Lord

Seneschal — tell the king that Duke Marcus speaks sooth.

I saw with my own eyes — the wizard Merlin belongs to

Satan now.'

A Talk with the King

'How can they say our wizard belongs to Satan when he
saved their lives?' Arthor retorted after Cei relayed the news
from Neptune's Toes. 'Is it the Devil's business now to spare

Christians from the Saxon's ax?'

Cei shrugged. 'Marcus is angry. He lost many lives . . .'

'I am angry, too, brother.' Arthor sat on a black rock
under the seacliffs, where the booming surf assured a private
conversation. 'Lot's four men who tried to kill me, they've
been found dead in the woods north of here.'

Cei cocked his head, as if to contemplate this. 'A wildwood
gang must have fallen upon them.'

'No, Cei.' Arthor held his stepbrother fast with a harsh stare.

'You killed them. I saw the bodies. They were large men but
they took downward blows from a bigger man.'

'A mounted warrior . . .'

'Silence, Cei!' Arthor stood up, hands fisted at his side.

'Do you think me a simpleton? There were no horse tracks.

t h e p e r i l o u s o r d e r

Y o u waited for those men among the trees — and you killed
them.'

'I slew them fairly.' Cei's broad face darkened at the
accusation of foul play. 'Lot left them their swords. I stood
against them alone.'

'And you killed them — against my orders.'

Cei looked to either side, as if the searocks themselves
would answer in his defense. 'They deserved to die. They
tried to murder you! And in the chapel, no less!'

'And your judgement is greater than my command, is that it,

Cei?' Arthor stood close to the large man. 'I am your king.'

'Well, yes, of course . . .' Cei looked perplexed, then angry.

'Why do you think I confronted them? They raised knives
against the king! Am I not your seneschal? Am I to abide
treachery?'

'Cei! Brother Cei!' Arthor's irate stare softened, and he
shook his head sadly. 'We are not to rule by power alone, you
and I, nor any in our court. Don't you see? Before us, Rome.

Before Rome, the Chieftains. All men, who ruled by might
of arms and terror. But we have a chance now for something
greater.'

'Those men would have gathered others to oppose you.'

'Those men would have spoken of mercy when asked how
they survived a failed attempt on my person.' Arthor put his
hands on Cei's shoulders. 'Your heart acted for me, and I
love you for that. But your heart must give more to the
world henceforth. We are not Romans or Chieftains. We are

Christians. We will not rule by the sword but by love. Do you
accept this from me, brother?'

An expression of deep thought closed Cei's face to a frown.

'You are my king. I must accept what you say.'

'But you do not believe it is good, do you? Speak to it.'

Cei shook his head. 'No, Arthor. Love is for priests and
mothers. For a warrior, it is deadly. Once he was delivered into
the hands of the centurions, what good was love for our Savior?

And, brother, if you think we are not already in the hands of
our enemies, you are a simpleton.'

Nynyve

King Arthor remained on the beach after Cei departed. He sat
engrossed in thought about how a Christian, commanded to
love even his enemies, could possibly reign as king, especially
beset by foes determined to murder the very people under his
protection. When he saw Bedevere stand up from where he
hunkered among the boulders, he thought perhaps Cei had
returned to apologize for stalking off. But the figure who
appeared with Bedevere was a woman of Celtic height and
complexion, pale-skinned with cinnamon hair. She wore a
traditional gum, a diaphanous green skirt that fell to her ankles
but left her breasts bare.

With a wave, Arthor beckoned her to him. The sight of
her half-nakedness did not perturb him even slighdy, for this
custom had persisted among rustic Celtic women throughout
the land and was not considered provocative. Yet, his ears and
cheeks did flush crimson at the sight of her tall beauty and no
clansmen in sight to watch over her. Such brazenness was indeed
startling, and Arthor's fifteen-year-old heart beat hard with lurid
surprise.

'My lady — where is your escort?' the king asked as she
strode direcdy toward him, her arms open to embrace him.

'The king is my escort,' she spoke in deep-throated Gaelic,
putting her arms on his arms and bending one knee before him.

'No harm can come upon me in his care.'

Arthor gendy pulled her upright and gazed with undisguised
ardor into her hazel eyes, the moonlight of her skin, the deep-
ening sunset in her long, softly curling hair. 'You are too lovely
a maiden to have come from anywhere without escort.'

'I have not come from anywhere,' she replied, earnesdy
studying his boyish features and his manly stature. 'I have always
been here. Your mother sent me to you. I am to instruct you in

Celtic ways. Did she not tell you? I am Nynyve of the Lake.'

The dulcet sound of her voice reached through the darkness
inside him like the stinging light of stars. Her beauty, so
perfect, so unmarred by even a single freckle, seemed almost
supernatural. 'Are you an enchantress?'

Nynyve laughed, a velvet laugh enclosing him in its
softness.

'No. I mean that seriously.' He pried her arms from his, and
anxiety pinched his stare. 'Is this some magic trick of Morgeu's?

Is it? You'll not deceive me twice, sister. Not twice!' Angrily,
he hooked his arms around her legs and shoulders and swooped
her off her feet.

'What are you doing?' she asked, frightened.

'Salt!' he gnashed, striding across the wet sand. 'Salt will
break the illusion.' Into the sea he carried her, turning his
back against the foaming surf. Holding her tightly, he bent his
knees to dunk them both beneath the waves. When he lifted
her sputtering out of the frothing water and saw that her body
had not shapeshifted and her face remained as lovely under a
web of wet hair as before he had immersed her, he released her.

Contritely, he knelt in the sea and let the waves beat him.

Mother Mary, news has come to me that Merlin lives, yet is possessed
of Satan. Can this be true? If so, I must trust to you and your Son
to free him from the great adversary - as I must trust you to liberate
my brother's heart from his murderous inclinations. I am frightened
for Cei. He is so strong in body and in faith and still so weak of
temperament. Merlin possessed by evil, Cei owned by ferocity, Marcus
wounded and irate at me for not plunging my men into battle, and the
invaders swarming ashore in greater numbers daily. Mother Mary, I
thought I'd go mad today, balked about by such troubles! And then,
on the beach, I met a woman of such exceeding beauty and charm, I
forgot my worries. Yet, even with her, a deeper worry asserted itself. I
was certain she was an illusion. I dunked her in the sea to dispel my
suspicion, and she fled from me — laughing. I feel so foolish. Morgeu
has scarred my soul, Mother Mary. I trust no woman. I doubt even
the kind words of my own mother, an abbess herself. My sword, that

I know. Our preparations for war are almost complete, and soon I
can give myself to what I trust most. And if I survive, if I save the
duke's realm from the invaders, I must kneel before my mother as I
am kneeling before you now. I must pray with her for forgiveness of
my sin of lust. I must pray that your Son, who lived and died for
love, will lift this burden from my heart that I may at least leam to
love as other men.

Vampyre in the Chapel

At sunset, Morgeu's tented wagon pulled up to a chapel on a
hill overlooking Wading Street, not far from Verulamium. A
dozen worshipers sat in the pews, chanting vespers, when the
heavy oak door blew open and Morgeu entered with a gust
of autumn chill and pouring leaves. 'Out!' she shouted. 'Leave
this place at once!'

The congregation gazed appalled at the intruder as she
strode down the aisle, red robes blustering in a stiff night
wind. The flames of altar candles jumped, gasped, and died
at her approach.

'Out!' she screamed again, shoving the priest aside from the
wood pulpit and seizing the rosewood crucifix from atop the
sacristy behind the altar. 'Out or be damned!'

Most of the communicants quickly exited, but a few farmers
remained, unwilling to forsake their worship for a wild woman.

When she smashed the crucifix to splinters against the altar, they
leaped to their feet. 'She's wicca — and mad!'

'Wicca I am!' she shouted at them. 'But mad am I?' She
showed her small teeth in a grimacing smile. 'At this moment,

King Wesc sends his storm raiders to raze your harvest fields

— and you sit here praying to a god who killed the son that
preached love. Ha!'

Alarmed by her curse, the farmers clambered over the pews
and ran out the door. Only the priest remained, a small, bald man
with wide ears and kindly eyes, his hands tucked into his brown
cassock. 'Daughter, you bring your rage to a place of peace.'

'This is not a place of peace, you dolt.' Morgeu kicked over
the wooden altar. 'This is the shrine to Hela, Queen of the Dead.

War chants belong here. Y o u desecrate her sacred province.'

'Calm yourself, daughter.' The priest showed her his empty
hands. 'Once a pagan shrine did occupy this hill. But it has been
cleansed of that infernal history generations ago.'

'Cleansed, eh?' She stamped her foot, and darkness filled
the chapel as the sun dipped under the horizon. 'Life cannot
cleanse death. It is death that cleanses life.'

'You are not well.' The priest took her arm and felt the
cold, rigid strength of it. 'Come with me to my hut. I have
wine and bread. We will eat together, and you will tell me
of Hela.'

'No.' In the dark, she had the stout bearing of a man.

'Leave at once or, I swear by all you hold unholy, you shall
be damned.'

'I belong here,' the priest said softly. 'I cannot leave unless
you come . . .' He stopped speaking. A man stood in the
doorway with eyes lucent as a cat's — and a white shadow
that shivered on the ground before him like teeming starlight.

'Come in, brother.'

'I am here,' the vampyre said, standing so suddenly beside
the priest that the cleric started and cried aloud his last mortal
words, 'My God!'

The Furor in Londinium

Of course the rain fell heavily when he arrived and kghtning
lashed the sky. He came through the south gate of the city
with the drovers bringing their culled herds to market. He
carried no weapon and he appeared very old, and so none of
the guards bothered to question him. Along the Avenue of
the Centurions, with the rain splashing off his floppy-brimmed
leather hat, he proceeded directly to the majestic steps of the
governor's palace.

Severus Syrax, magister militum of Londinium, sat in the
throne room among columns of pink marble and statues of
emperors when a herald announced, 'The wizard Merlin begs
an audience with you, my lord.'

Syrax stiffened, surprised by the sudden arrival of the
demon-sorcerer. He dismissed the accountants and clerks who
had been reviewing with him the city's autumnal stores of
grain and livestock, and he summoned two priests and the full
contingent of his armored personal guard before he gestured
for the wizard to be brought in.

Even without his famous midnight-blue robes and conical
hat, Merlin's long, sallow skull and dragon-socket eyes identified
him to the warlord. 'Stand well back from me, demon, and say
what you have come to say.'

Gorlois smiled with savage glee at the sight of his former
comrade-in-arms. The arrogant coxcomb had not changed
one whit. He still obviously spent more time trimming his

Persian-style beard and coiffing his curls than drilling his troops
or reviewing the battlements. 'I have come to speak on behalf
of King W e s c '

'The Saxon bloodsucker?' Syrax leaned forward on the satin
squabs of the marble throne to be certain that this was indeed
the wizard. He had been deceived before by this shapeshifter.

'I thought you'd found your champion in that beardless brute

Arthor.'

Gorlois had never seen Arthor, yet the Furor's vision
compelled a recognition. That whore-son begot on my wife by
another man! His father was the weakling brother of the Roman
warlord I died defending! His personal rage whisked away before the power of the Furor, and he spoke with the voice that the

Lawspeaker had instilled in him: 'Arthor is far away in the west,
beleaguered by Wolf Warriors. His future is doubtful. I must
do what I can to bring peace to this island. And so I speak for

King Wesc and the Foederatus.'

'I've paid my annual tribute to the damnable Foederatus!'

Syrax soundly banged his fist on the arm of the throne. 'I won't
pay another coin. Not a single coin!'

'Your tribute has won you peace here in Londinium,'

Gorlois continued to relay the message from the Furor. 'The

Foederatus have left your fields and fisheries unmolested. Now

King Wesc wishes to extend this Pax Foederatus westward, to
other Roman coloniae — and for your role as his legate he will pay you gold.'

Fight for the Coast

Ocean light glinted from the brass fittings of the mounted
warriors that King Arthor led on patrol along the winding
coast road. Inland, Kyner and Lot had fanned out with their
troops to clear the countryside of roving Wolf Warriors and
wildwood gangs. Their mutual destination was Neptune's Toes,
where Marcus would join their forces as counselor, his injury
precluding his riding into battle.

The troops that Arthor led were the Duke's, and they
displayed the full regalia of Roman soldiers. The impressive
sight of them in their polished helmets and flexible body armor
of metal strips filled the boy with pride to be at their head.

As a warrior of Kyner's clan, Arthor had worn a second-hand
helmet purchased from an itinerant armorer. His cuirasse had
been scuffed leather. And only on diplomatic visits with his
stepfather to Roman courts across Gaul had he seen soldiers
wearing about their waist the sporran of metal-bound thongs
that now his foot soldiers wore.

Bedevere had shown the young king how to don Roman
batde gear and also how to command an imperial army. As a
clan warrior, Arthor had always before ridden to combat in small
squads, camping in the forest and sleeping under strewn leaves.

The caravan trek to the north had been the largest expedition he
had ever undertaken. And never had he ridden before an entire
cavalry wing and infantrymen trained in legionary tactics.

At nightfall, the regularity of the army's encampments left

Arthor agog. Each soldier carried two stakes for use as a palisade
inside the ditch that was dug by them for the night. As if a
mirage forming from the twilight, garrison tents rose within a
fortified perimeter. Scouts delivered reports from the territory
that would be covered by the next day's march, and Arthor
learned from the Duke's commanders how to deploy the troops
to meet each day's challenges.

Battles raged frequendy and tediously among the numerous
coves and estuaries along the rocky coast. And much as Arthor
bridled to lead the efficient troops in their flexible body armor
and closely packed, disciplined ranks, Bedevere insisted that the
king remain on the hilltops among the other commanders,
the better to learn the tactics and strategy necessary to head
an army.

Marcus's commanders would just as soon have seen the
rustic boy-king rush off to battle as have had to explain to
him every small detail of their warplans. But the Duke, out of
courtesy to Ygrane, a holy woman much revered in his province
and the widow of his former lord, Uther Pendragon, had given
orders that Arthor was to be allowed command position in the
ranks — but given no genuine authority.

'They treat me like a boy,' Arthor complained to Bedevere
at night, alone in the camp's one regal purple tent. 'I've
fought Saxons, Jutes and Angles, and I know their strengths
and weaknesses. I'm no dolt with a sword.'

'Certainly not, sire.' Bedevere snuffed the canopy oil lamp
and paused before exiting. 'But you must remember that Marcus
has not given his pledge. In his eyes — and in truth, my lord - you
are yet a boy. If you can accept this, you may survive to manhood and find that you have become a king in more than just tide.'

Wanderings

The souls of Merlin, Dagonet, and Lord Monkey suffered within
the assembled form of R e x Mundi as the demon Azael and the

Fire Lord alternately abandoned them to fulfill themselves. When
the Fire Lord broke away to accomplish the tasks that God set
for him, the rages of the demon harrowed the trapped souls'.

And during the intervals when the demon left the angel to
hold together the magical body, everyone burned with insatiable
yearning for heaven.

End thith tewible thujfewing! Dagonet pleaded, and Lord

Monkey's animal cries sharpened.

But Merlin would not use the gems from the Otherworld
that he carried in the pockets of the robe to break the magic
he had wrought. Exiled again to the dwarfs body, he would
never find his way back to his own flesh. As R e x Mundi,
between bouts of demonic despair and angelic longing, there
was clarity. While Azael and the Fire Lord mutely circled each
other, the wizard commanded Dagonet to silence, mesmerically
eased Lord Monkey to sleep, and trancefully searched for his
own flesh.

Merlin sensed his body far to the east and continued to direct

R e x Mundi to travel in that direction. But the continual digres-
sions of Azael and the Fire Lord sent the conglomerate body
reeling off in unexpected directions. Avoiding all settlements,
the tall creature of horrid aspect followed old dry creek beds,
roadside ditches screened by thornbrush, and drear forest paths.

Berries and tubers provided sustenance when the cultivated
fields and orchards stood empty. Large animals instinctively
avoided the supernatural being. And only the most foolhardy
and desperate brigands dared accost him.

An arrow whisded among the trees, aimed for R e x Mundi's
cloaked breast, and the hairy, leathern hand snatched it out of
the air. The archer thrashed away through the underbrush. An
oafish farmer, driven mad by the Saxon plundering of his croft
and murder of his family, slashed at the gruesome wanderer with
a tree limb. It broke like punk wood across the broad back and
the glare of rage in the terrible face that turned around set the
madman's insanity deeper in his brain.

Merlin did not allow the monkey soul or the demon to
take human life except when the assailants themselves offered
the certainty of threat to other people. Shrieking monkey fury,

R e x Mundi leaped among encamped gangs of mercenaries and
bandits. His blows blurred with lethal speed, and he spun among
the foes of life like a whirlwind of death.

These murderous episodes were rare. R e x Mundi wandered
mosdy alone through the autumn countryside, accompanied
only by windy rain and falling leaves.

Haunting Verulamium

Morgeu reverted the chapel outside Verulamium to a shrine
for worship of Hela, Goddess of Death. Several other chapels
occupied hills and knolls elsewhere around the town, and the
enchantress felt that the Christians would reasonably abandon
their claim on her temple — once enough of the townspeople
who returned were sacrificed to the Goddess.

Church elders came by daylight with pikes and lances
to drive the witch from their chapel, and a ferocious bear
descended from the forest and intercepted them on the hill
path. The slashing paws slew four men and maimed two others
before the giant ursine lumbered back into the dark woods. That
night, the survivors came bearing torches, accompanied by a
gang of mercenaries armed with swords and two bows with
a quiver of arrows to share between them. Out of the clear
sky, hghtning flashed and struck with explosive force in their
midst at the exact spot of the bear attack. The gang scattered,
and Terpillius stalked them on the dark hillside, his bloodless
face leering suddenly into torchlight before his fangs struck.

Samhain, the new year of the ancient calendar, saw the
arrival of an exorcist from Lindum. Accompanied by four armed
men from Londinium, he came at noon to the possessed chapel
bearing a venerable text, holy relicts, and a phial of water from
the Jordan blessed by the pope himself. He found Morgeu
seated on the earthen floor, the pews shoved to the walls and
carved with pagan symbols - spirals, glyphs of horned dancers,
pentagrams.

'By the mundane power of the Holy Father in Ravenna
and the celestial glory of God Most High and His only begotten

Son . . .'

'You trespass on ground consecrated to Hela,' she warned
the stout, long-haired priest in the scarlet vestment of papal
authority. 'And you do so on the one day of the year when

Hela opens the gates of Sleet Den, her asylum for the wicked
dead. Flee at once! Flee and spare yourselves the wrath of the

Death Goddess!'

Three of the armed escort turned and ran, alarmed by the
unnatural timbre of the witch's voice and the eerie pallor in the
cold chapel. On the hill path, the earth gave out beneath them,
and they plunged out of sight, their screams echoing weirdly
from the sky above.

'Ah, too late.' Morgeu traced a sigil in the dirt, a wavery
snakeline, and small blue flames fluttered out of the ground,
almost invisible in the daylight. 'The remaining two of you
may die screaming with your companions — or you may stay
and serve me.'

The phial slipped from the trembling hand of the exorcist
and a splash from the River Jordan burst to vapors that rose
into a cadaverous face. Shrieking, the priest fled the chapel,
his scarlet robes erupting with a dull roar into flames. The
conflagration consumed him, yet he kept running. Though his
flesh melted to black smoke, his bones exploded from the heat,
and his marrow lay on the earth bubbling like tar, he ran all the
way back to Verulamium, where his ghost was heard wailing
for days among the lanes and alleys and in the water pipes and
sewer drains.

A Forest Tryst

Nynyve found King Arthor in the last golden hour of day
practicing swordplay with a sergeant in scale armor. At the
sight of her standing alone at the forest edge, beyond the
field where the army dug the night trenches, he executed a
double-feint parry and deftly lifted the sergeant's weapon from
his hand.

'He's a remarkable swordsman,' the battle-scarred sergeant
reluctantly acknowledged to Bedevere as he watched the youth
stride away. 'Now where is he going? I want the boy to teach
me that nimble double pass. I've never seen the likes of it.'

'Sire!' Bedevere called, but Arthor paid him no heed. As

Ygrane had warned the one-armed soldier before he departed

Tintagel, 'Keep a close eye on my son, steward. Each of his feet
walks a different road, one of this world, one of the other.'

'Lady — what are you doing here, so far from Tintagel?' In
the rusted light of the autumn forest, she seemed to possess a
golden aura. 'These woods are infested with murderous men.'

'You departed Tintagel before I could bid you farewell,'

she said in a voice languorous as seasmoke.

He put both hands on her shoulders to feel for himself that
she was not an apparition. 'It was you who fled without courtesy
that first day on the beach

'Courtesy!' Her face showed afffontedness yet her hazel eyes
smiled. 'You dunked me in the sea! I fled before you inflicted
further discourtesy upon me.'

'Lady, I could never act discourteously with you.' He
squeezed her shoulders and stepped back. 'I had to know
you were not an enchantment. Yet even now, finding you
here alone - I think you cannot be other than an enchantress.

How else could you . . .'

'Travel so far unmolested?' She turned and pointed through
the long slants of forest light to where four horsemen with
waist-long hair and buckskin trousers sat upon their grazing
mounts — large, fierce Celtic warriors wearing golden tores and
long swords strapped to their naked backs. 'My fiana.'

'Fiana serve the Celt queen . . .' Arthor's jaw dropped as
comprehension finally opened in him. Y o u are my mother's
successor . . . the queen of the pagan Celts!'

'I am queen,' she acknowledged with a small smile.

'But you're not much older than I . . . and yet a queen?'

'I am older than I appear.' She tossed back her cinnamon
curls. 'And besides, queens are not chosen for their age or their
wisdom but their kinship with the faerie. Y o u know this.'

'So I have heard.'

'Your mother was taken as a child from the hills to serve
the druids. I am somewhat older. Yet the faerie obey me.' She
moved away. 'And next time we meet, we shall see how this
matters between us.'

Arthor did not try to stop her from leaving, not with her four
stern warriors glaring at him from among the sun's fiery rays.

The Invasion

The sun had not yet risen, and the British camp was already busy
preparing for the day's march when the scouts came charging
through the low skein of mist in the forest. 'Bowmen!' they
reported. 'Barges of bowmen deploying off Oyster Shoals and
occupying Fenland and White Hart!'

'Saxons abhor the bow,' one of the commanders muttered.

'It's beneath their savage dignity to slay their enemies at a
distance. These archers are Foederatus troops — the pagan
alliance that imitates Roman batde strategies. If that's true,
we've bloody days ahead of us.'

By midday, the Duke's army knew the scouts' reports were
entirely accurate. Archers held the hummocks and knolls of

Fenland and the hills of White Hart, effectively blocking

Arthor's advance. Messengers hurried north to summon Kyner
and Lot from the high woods, and birds were dispatched east
to announce the Foederatus invasion to the warlords of the

Midlands and plead for their reinforcements.

'That help is days away, if those warlords will deign to
help me at all,' Arthor informed the commanders in the war
tent. 'Meanwhile, Duke Marcus is stranded at Neptune's Toes,
unable to ride and now cut off from us by the Foederatus. I will
go to him with a warband and ensure his safety. He is under
my protection, and I cannot leave him to the mercy of our
enemies.'

The commanders mumbled their agreement, indifferent
to the fate of this untried boy-king and frustrated in their
attempts to agree upon any other way to retrieve their Duke.

But Bedevere protested, 'The Duke has put himself in this
jeopardy by ignoring our war counsel at Tintagel. For you
to risk your life riding through the enemy's lines is foolhardy
at best, maybe fatal.'

'I am high king of Britain,' Arthor stated, moving his steady
gaze slowly among the commanders. 'My brother-in-arms has
behaved foolishly and by ignoring my command is now in peril
of his life. Yet, it is to be remembered that I am a king of mercy,
a Christian king, and I forgive him for not trusting me, a man
less than half his age. He still remains under my protection. I
will return him to you safely.'

Bedevere waited until Arthor exited the war tent before
pulling him sharply aside. 'Sire, the Foederatus know you are
here. That is why they are staging a full-scale invasion. If we
ride out among them, you will surely die.'

Arthor unclasped the corselet of polished metal bands. 'We
leave our fancy armor behind for this ride, Bedevere. I want
eight of the best horsemen in the Duke's army, mounted archers
all — and every one a volunteer. Go! Quickly! We must cross

Fenland and enter the forest before dark.'

The warband rode north while the army advanced east to
engage the entrenched invaders. Arthor led the riders dressed as
a common archer in brown leggings, black tunic of padded quilt,
and a recurved Persian bow slung across his back, Excalibur
at his side. None of the Furor's men saw their crossing of

Fenland behind the screen of the advancing phalanx, and by
nightfall Arthor's warband flitted like shadows into the gloomy
autumn forest.

Demons and Angels

While R e x Mundi slept in a ditch under stars troweled by racks
of cloud, Azael challenged the Fire Lord. 'Tell me again why
you persist in opposing us?'

The Fire Lord made no reply, tall and radiant against the
darkness of the night.

'We come from the same place, you and I,' Azael went on,
almost invisible in the brambles of the shadowed ditch. 'We
come from heaven. We knew God together. I loved Her as
well as you loved Her. That's why we followed Her when She
came out here, into the cold and the darkness. We thought we
would know Her better, love Her more intimately. We thought
that! And look what it got us! N o w we're freezing and groping
around in pain. We made a terrible mistake coming out here.

We should have stayed where we were.'

The angel burned silently in the dark.

'How can you hold onto your light the way you do?'

Azael's voice shook with incredulity. 'You're mad! Don't you
realize that by holding onto your tiny piece of heaven, you
suffer more than if you let that damnable fire go? Release
it! You'll feel better. Yes, it's mind-cramping cold out here

— but it's worse to burn. I know. Believe me, I know. I
clung onto my shred of heaven, too. I held it longer than
most. I know the pain you're suffering, the burning, the
constant searing hurt as your fire consumes you, eats your
pain. And not you or the fire or the agony ever gets any
less. Y o u burn. Let it go, like I did. The cold is better than
the burning. At least the cold is real. By holding onto your
fire, you cling to the past, to the heaven we're never going
back to.'

The Fire Lord said nothing, standing still under the stars.

'You think we are going back, don't you?' Azael's many
eyes glinted malevolendy from where he squatted in the ditch.

'You're insane to think that, you know. There is no going back.

She made a mistake when She came out here, and now we all
have to suffer for it. Building the mineral kingdoms, fitting
together the life forms, instilling awareness in these hungry
shit-makers, that's all madness. It's going nowhere. Break it all
down, I say. If we're stuck out here, let's at least face our fate
bravely, realistically. These abhorrent illusions you create only
make our suffering worse. They harbor false hope. They're a
mockery of the suffering we can't avoid. That's why we hate
you. Y o u mock us with these gruesome and filthy things you
make. They want to be like us, but they can't. They're just
assembled things. They fall apart. We don't fall apart. We're
real. Our pain is real. Give up your fire, the spark of heaven
you cling to so fanatically, so miserably. Let it go! Sink into the
darkness with us. Accept what has become of us. Don't fight it.

Don't make it worse.'

The Fire Lord offered only silence to his dark brother,
for the burning hurt so much that if he spoke he knew he
would scream.

Wooing Atrebates

Gorlois gazed up at the stars from the terrace of the governor's
palace in Londinium. The visionary power instilled in him by
the Furor allowed him to perceive that the sky so full of fire
was itself an illusion. So many stars had already burned out
centuries ago, their light orphaned to the dark. The appearance
that their stellar origins still existed was an illusion for mortals,
who believed the sky was full of fire when in truth it was full
of deception.

All of creation was full of lies, Gorlois realized. Animals
camouflaged themselves to pounce on their prey, people dis-
sembled, and time itself was a mirage. The future and the past
did not exist. Reality was instantaneous. Only the small brains
that housed the human mind accepted time as real. The future
of apocalypse that the Furor feared was as likely as the beautiful
hope of the Fire Lords.

'Merlin, assure our guest of King Wesc's promise,' the
unctuous voice of Serverus Syrax disturbed Gorlois's musings.

'I have shown Count Platorius Atrebates the ingots of gold the
good Saxon king has given me for my services to him as a legate.

But apparendy, the Count wants other assurances from you.'

Gorlois turned from where he leaned on the terrace balus-
trade and faced Syrax and his guest, the gaunt, gray-whiskered

Platorius, Count of the Atrebates, whose sullen eyes looked
bruised within their wrinkles of prune-dark flesh. 'Indeed,

King Wesc wants peace with the warlords of the Britons.' The

Furor's message spoke through Merlin's throat. 'In return for
granting the Saxon king favorable trading status with the lush
farmlands and vineyards of the Atrebates, you will be received
as a dignitary among the Foederatus and your domain accorded
protection from their storm raiders and Wolf Warriors. Also,
you personally will have a share of all booty taken from the
provinces that oppose the Foederatus.'

'Merlin,' Count Platorius spoke with cold disbelief. 'I heard
you speak at Camelot not three months ago, offering that
youngster Aquila Regalis Thor as our king. N o w you speak
for the Saxons?'

'I speak for peace,' Gorlois said, obeying the Furor's magic.

'Can Arthor offer peace? Perhaps. My hope is that he will. But

I must look to the welfare of the whole island. What King Wesc
offers serves Britain, and I have agreed to speak for him.'

'Just this day I have received a plea for help from your
young Arthor in the land of the Dumnonii,' Platorius added
suspiciously. 'The Foederatus have launched a full-scale invasion
of Marcus's domain, and your boy wants me to send troops to
defend our island.'

'Ignore him,' Gorlois said bluntly. W h y should you throw
away this opportunity for peace and prosperity among the

Atrebates because of a dispute with arrogant Duke Marcus?

He has neither pledged himself to Arthor nor accepted King

Wesc's peace terms.'

'What of Bors Bona of the Parisi?' the Count asked. 'He
commands the largest army in Britain. Does King Wesc accept
him?'

'King Wesc accepts all who will trade in peace with him,'

Gorlois replied. 'I will visit with Warlord Bona next. But
first, give me assurance, dear Count, that you will honor

King Wesc.'

Count Platorius's brown lids drooped sleepily. 'I want
peace.'

Stand on Neptune's Toes

'My lord duke, this villa is indefensible,' a surgeon said to Marcus
as he examined the warlord's damaged leg under the olive-tree
arbor of the terrace overlooking the night-shining bay. 'You
cannot ride with this injury, and so we cannot slip away in the
night. Soon our enemies will swarm over us.'

'You are a mihtary genius as well as a surgeon?' Marcus
growled. 'Tell me about my leg, not my enemies.'

'God has blessed you with a clean break, my lord duke,' the
surgeon reported and adjusted the pillows under the reclining
man's shoulders. 'If the bone had smashed like crockery, you'd
be fevered now and dying. As it is, the bone set easily enough,
and you will walk again, without a limp I dare say — but only
if your enemies let you live.'

Marcus spat out the willow bark he had been gnawing to
quell the throbbing pain. 'I've had enough of your war counsel,
surgeon. I am ordering you to leave this place tonight. Take
the other surgeon with you if he wants to go. And send in the
drummers.'

The surgeon bowed gratefully and quickly exited. Moments
later, four nervous young men entered accompanied by a portly
man with curly whiskers and a knee-length tunic of combed
wool. 'I am Cupetianus,' the hefty man announced with a
tremulous voice, 'master of this villa and spokesman for the
fisherfolk of Neptune's Toes. My lord duke — we are honored
to receive you in our humble village - we are honored, indeed,
yes, honored. The fisherfolk, a wary lot, they, uh, they ask me
to ask you, uh, when, that is, how soon you expect your army
to join you here?'

'I don't,' the duke answered flady. 'You saw the messenger
who came this day and left soon after? He reports that as we
speak my army is locked in mortal combat at Fenland and White

Hart with a large Foederatus force. They can't reach us. We are
on our own.'

'Our own?' Cupetianus's small eyes widened in his pudgy
face.

'The Foederatus know I am cut off from my army,' Marcus
went on calmly. 'But they don't know exactly where I am. If
you keep the fisherfolk from announcing my presence, we will
have more time before the Saxons come through here looking
for me.'

'Oh my lord duke!' Cupetianus knelt at the bedside of
the injured warrior. 'Several boats of fishermen and their
families have already fled! The Saxons may have caught them
at sea or farther down the coast. If so, they will be here by
morning!'

Marcus cursed silendy. 'You know that if I surrender myself,
the pagans will burn this town to the ground anyway? They
have not come like the Romans to master the land and its
people. They come only to destroy. We must gather the
people and all the weapons we can find and take our stand
here, on Neptune's Toes.'

Faerie

King Arthor led his warband slowly through the night forest,
impeded by darkness and dense undergrowth. His men mut-
tered behind him as branches slapped at them and thorn bramble
cut their steeds, eliciting loud whinnies. 'Sire, we must camp
till light.'

Arthor shot a dark look at Bedevere, We go on. We must
press past the Foederatus line before daybreak.'

'In this darkness that is impossible.' Bedevere pitched his
voice for the king's ears alone. 'We dare not leave the forest, for
the open country exposes us to enemy archers. We must stay.'

'No!' Arthor spoke loud enough for all to hear. We go
on through the dark, through the bramble, through hell if
we must.'

'And lose our way?' Bedevere whispered hody. 'Or stumble
into a Saxon wargang? No, sire. We must stop for the night.'

Arthor would not listen to his experienced steward, so-
determined was he to break through to Neptune's Toes before
the Saxons found Duke Marcus. He shoved his palfrey beyond

Bedevere, wanting to free himself from the man's concerned
badgering. Soon, he rode well advanced of the others and saw a
smoky light glimmer ahead, like foxfire — or an enemy's torch.

He drew Excalibur.

'Put away your good sword,' a deep-throated woman's voice
spoke in Gaelic. 'It's not wise to raise a weapon against faerie.'

'Nynyve!'

'At your side, my king.' The queen emerged from the
darkness among the trees riding a black stallion, a piece of the
night itself. 'Wait here for your men. Then follow that foxfire.

It is the faerie themselves, and they will lead you on the most
direct route through this forest to where you are going. But
do not try to overtake them — or you will lose yourself in the

Otherworld.'

Before he could question her further, Nynyve pulled back
into the dark forest and disappeared. Arthor waited, as she had
instructed, and when his warband caught up with him, he led
them in pursuit of the vaporous lights far into the woods. The
cutting bramble fell away, and soon they found themselves
clopping quickly along tree-cloistered avenues and boulevards,
their hooves muted by the thick carpet of fallen leaves.

Where are you leading us, sire?' Bedevere inquired.

'I am not leading at all.' Arthor pointed to the flurrying
ghosdights ahead. 'The faerie are guiding us.'

'Faerie?' Bedevere cried in fright. We are Christians! By
the very wounds of Christ, sire, they are leading us to hell!'

'Hush, Bedevere,' Arthor warned. 'You'll frighten the men.'

'I will not hush, sire! Our souls are in jeopardy!' The steward
signed to one of the warband. 'You, ride ahead and cut them
off. Scout their path and find out where we've been led.'

'No!' the king commanded. But he was not the warband's
king, and the chosen rider flew ahead. In moments, he disap-
peared from sight. All that night, they heard his voice calling
from below them, from under the rootweave of the forest.

And so horrified were his cries and so swiftly shifting that none
dared stop to dig for him until daybreak. By that citrus light,
they unearthed only roots and rocks, and the deeper they dug,
the more the cries dimmed until they had dug the depth of a
grave and heard nothing more of the lost rider.

Defying the Furor

Confident that the Shrine of the Dead would remain untouched
by the citizens of Verulamium until she returned to use it for
her ceremonial purposes, Morgeu journeyed south in her tented
wagon. The one guard that she had spared of the four that
accompanied the exorcist drove the horses. She lay in the back,
upon the loam that covered Terpillius and listened to his dreams
of the blood's blue current, soft surges of sexual glory from all
the lives he had drained, the great sadness of their disembodied
voices, their mortal pain and then the slow, serene rupture of
memories and desires into a darkness both great and deep.

At night, while the guard slumbered in the amber glow of
the campfire, the vampyre hovered over him.

'Leave him be,' Morgeu commanded, returning from
refreshing herself on the banks of a chill and muttering brook.

'I need him.'

'He is such an unhandsome creature.' Terpillius regarded
with obvious disdain the man's scruffy beard, bulbous, pock-
scarred nose, and grimy, travel-worn garments. Tor what would
you need such a brute, mistress?'

'He asked that very question of you.'

Terpillius stepped through the campfire, and it flared green.

'You told this oaf about me?'

'He wondered why I am hauling a wagonload of soil.'

Morgeu sat beside the fire, placed several tubers into the ashes
to bake, and pulled her gray mantle tighter against the night
wind. 'Now that he knows, he is glad to leave you undisturbed.

His name—'

'Martius,' the vampyre said, annoyed. 'I know his name. I
can read a soul as well as you. He is a Protector - a Christian.'

'By birth and not with any passion.' She warmed her hands
in the crackling heat. 'Fear him not. Rather, cherish him.

He is a Protector - an officer cadet. His sword will prove
useful to us.'

Terpillius sat beside the enchantress, and his white shadow
stretched into the darkness like the moon's path on water. 'You
have yet to tell me why we travel south.'

'I have been kstening to your dreams, Terpillius.' Morgeu
withdrew a flaming stick from the fire and held it under the
vampyre's chin so that his face glowed green. 'The lives upon
which you've thrived all these many years continue on inside
you, afloat in the very darkness, the very vacancy you fear.

Is that how you cope with the emptiness that you are - by
crowding yourself with the lifetimes of others?'

The vampyre ignored her. 'Tell me now why we travel
south, mistress.'

'To defy the Furor, Terpillius.' She smiled at his jolted
expression. 'He holds my father's soul in a wizard's body. I
want you to take that soul from him and put it here, where it
belongs.' She took his hand and placed it on her womb so that
he felt again the root-blood, the source of life, the beginning
of death.

Breakfast with Nynyve

While the Duke's archers dug into the forest floor trying to
free their lost comrade from the Otherworld, King Arthor tied
off his palfrey and wandered among the mammoth trees and
uplifted roodedges. He searched for some sign of Nynyve and
het fiana.

'The faerie have taken the defiant rider,' Nynyve's resonant
voice spoke from a hazel grove shot with sunlight. 'He is gone.'

Arthor shoved through the dense branches and found the
queen seated on a reed mat with burl bowls of steaming cereal
flummery, a basket of chestnuts, hardboiled quails' eggs, a wedge
of blue cheese, loaves of apple bread, and a horn of cider.

'My lady — the lost bowman is in my protection. I cannot
forsake him.'

'Sit down, Arthor. Breakfast with me.' Nynyve wore buck-
skin riding trousers, soft boots laced to her knees, and a red vest
embroidered with gold oghams he did not comprehend. 'You
are a good king — but you are not a god and cannot command
the faerie.'

'You are the Celtic queen,' he acknowledged, sitting beside
her. 'The faerie obey you.'

A laugh sparkled from her. 'The queen serves the Otherworld,
the Annum. I do not command the obedience of what is
greater than I. We must both live within our hrnits. Here,
try this bread.'

Arthor timidly received the twist of apple bread broken by

Nynyve's fingers, fearing to eat anything from a pagan queen.

Nynyve giggled at his trepidation. 'I'm not going to poison
you. I've come to help you.'

'By stealing away one of my men?' he asked and accepted
the morsel.

'By leading you most directly to Neptune's Toes.'

'You have saved us some hours' travel, for which I am
grateful, yet our goal is still a day's ride away.'

'Oh, is it?' She took Arthor's hand that held the bread and
took a bite from it. While chewing, she said, 'The faerie know
their way through this forest better than men. When you leave
here, you'll find that you've already reached your destination.'

Arthor moved to rise, and the queen took his arm to detain
him. 'I must go at once,' he said. 'Duke Marcus is in peril.'

'Yes, he is.' Her speckled eyes showed worry. 'Doom
encloses the Duke. The invaders ride upon him from over
the terraces of the sea and swarm also along the shore. I led
you here to save him — but you must eat first. Y o u will need
strength to fight.'

'I need fighters to fight. You've taken one from me.' Arthor
stood and backed away. 'Will your Jiana ride with me?'

Nynyve shook her head. 'They defend only the queen, not

Christian dukes.' She motioned to the victuals upon the mat.

'My magic has brought you here, Arthor. Will you not trust
me now? I tell you, whoever eats of this food will not taste his
own blood this day.'

Up the Storm Tree

Merlin grew frustrated at the bickering of the demon and the

Fire Lord, each abandoning R e x Mundi to stalk off on their own
secret missions of evil and mercy. He grew weary of Dagonet's
lisping complaints, I'm thcared. I don't want to be Wecth Mundi
anymore. And even Lord Monkey's constant cluttering for food
had grown tiresome.

In an evening pasture under a carnage of sunset clouds,

Merlin reached skyward for a tendril dangling off a bough
of the Storm Tree, Yggdrasil, the planet's towering magnetic
field with its roots at the poles penetrating in a tangle to the
molten core. The solar wind sometimes buffeted the branches
low enough to Middle Earth for mortal beings to grasp on and
climb upward. And that was what R e x Mundi did.

Into the timeless sky above the twilight, R e x climbed. A
horned moon shone over the amethyst crescent of the earth,
far larger than seen from below. Mauve craterlands stood visible
in the lunar shadows and stark promontories lay clear to view. In
the Storm Tree itself, ambrosial mists scrimmed distant crags of
waterfalls and a blue tapestry of woodlands and evening fields.

What ith thith plathe?

'We have climbed to Nightbreak Branch, the lowest level
of the Storm Tree,' Merlin whispered. 'From here, maybe, if
you're quiet enough, I can spy my body down below.'

Gweat God! Thith ith Yggdwathil — home of the north godth!

'All the gods have dwelled here at one time or the other,'

Merlin spoke soothingly, hoping to calm the dwarf within
while he strolled through the pink light of day's end and the
soft effulgence of moonbeams. 'All that you see around you is
an illusion, a mirage woven by your brain in its frantic attempt
to make sense of the energies of the sun and the earth that meet
here. In truth, we are now immersed in an ocean of light that
floats high in the sky. What we call gods are but another order
of being who swim in this sea - mortals on a vaster timescale.

They are not to be feared.'

A giantess strode through the mists among the slanted boles
of the distant forest, and Merlin cried at the sight of her, 'A god
comes! Quick, we must hide!'

I thought you thaid there wath nothing to fear?

'This is not fear - but respect.' Merlin guided R e x Mundi to
dive into a bank of great white lilies and grass shimmering with
night dew. From this covert, he watched the giantess diminish in
size as she approached, condensing to the size of a mortal woman
as she strolled past, lissome and fair-haired, garbed in tiffanies and
gold chains, her sunset-streaked tresses braided intricately over
her left shoulder. 'It is Keeper of the Dusk Apples — the Furor's
mistress!'

The solar-burnished goddess paused before the grassy bank
where R e x Mundi hid. 'Come forth, Lailoken. I saw you sneak
into our Tree. Come forth, before I summon the Furor.'

Bedevere's Doubts

'Sire!' Bedevere called from among the forest's morning fumes.

'Come forth! Where are you?'

Arthor shoved through a screen of hazel branches carrying
in both arms a folded mat of reeds. 'I'm right here, Bedevere.

You needn't shout. I was with Nynyve in this grove.'

Bedevere saw that his king was whole, then used his one arm
to pull aside the tangled hazel fronds. 'No one is here, sire.'

Arthor peered over the steward's shoulder, astonished. 'I
just sat with her — right here — a moment ago.'

'The grass is not even trampled.' Bedevere retreated several
paces. 'This place is bewitched, sire. The rider I sent ahead,
he's gone. Utterly gone. No hooftracks. And his voice —
it's dimmed away into the depths of the earth. What devil-
try is this?'

'I swear to you - the Celtic queen sent the faerie to guide
us. Through those trees we will find Neptune's Toes.'

'That is not possible. We are many leagues away from that
cove.' Bedevere's refined features had grown pale. What is that
you carry?'

Arthor did not answer but led the steward back through
the forest to where the warband of archers stood aghast around
the grave-deep pit wherein they had last heard their comrade's
cries. 'Men - I have brought us sustenance to strengthen us
for the fight that lies ahead.' He opened the reed mat on the
ground and revealed the two bowls of cereal flummery, still
steaming, the chestnuts, cheese, bread, and horn of cider. We
must all eat.'

Where did you get this food, boy?' one of the archers asked
suspiciously.

'You will address him as lord if not sire,' Bedevere spoke
harshly to the bowman. 'Otherwise, mount and return to
the army.'

Arthor put a restraining hand on Bedevere's one arm and
told the tale of what had befallen him in the morning woods.

Of the seven remaining archers, only two did not back away
from the proffered meal.

Bedevere spoke for the others, 'Sire, we are Christian
warriors. We trust in the viaticum we received before this march
began. The blood and flesh of our Savior will protect us.'

'The viaticum is guaranteed passport to heaven,' Arthor
agreed. 'But this faerie food will keep our souls in our bodies.'

'I'll not eat it,' Bedevere averred and backed away.

'I am ordering you to eat it.' Frustrated, Arthor seized a
loaf of apple bread and bit into it. 'It's not poison. It's the
faeries' aid.'

'Unholy food,' Bedevere asserted, and the bowmen stub-
bornly agreed.

'I am commanding you as your king.' Recollecting himself,

Arthor again proffered the loaf to his steward, this time with
a harsh mien. 'Our Savior has taught, we cannot serve two
masters. If you fear for your soul, then go and take the
vows of a priest. But if you stay at my side, I am your
master. Eat!'

Bedevere reluctandy accepted the loaf and nibbled at it.

'Eat!' Arthor shouted, and Bedevere ate more heartily. 'All
of you. Eat this food and mount up. Your duke needs our
strength.'

'Our duke has made no pledge to you — boy!' The five
intractable archers returned to their steeds and watched with
glowering expressions as their two comrades reluctandy obeyed
the boy-king.

Legends of Blood

Cupetianus screamed from where he crouched atop the pantiles
of the villa's roof, 'They're coming! The Saxons are coming!'

Duke Marcus stood propped by an oak crutch under the tree
arbor of the terrace, watching a band of Wolf Warriors strolling
up the beach, forty strong. And on the sea, three flat boats
holding ten berserkers each skimmed on the morning waves.

'Are the war engines readied?' he asked the four drummers
who attended him, and they muttered affirmatively. 'Then, get
my horse!'

As the boats hissed onto the beach and the storm warriors
climbed the sandy verges, knocking down drying racks and
skein lines as they went, wagons loaded with sea rocks tilted
on the terraces above, sending boulders rolling down among the
invaders. Immediately behind the avalanche, the drummers and
a score of fishermen armed with tridents, grappling hooks, and
fishing spears attacked. Duke Marcus, mounted and grimacing
in pain, charged from among the boat sheds, sword raised high,
plumed helmet gleaming.

The Wolf Warriors dodged the tumbling boulders laughing
and lifted their batde tunics of human hide to expose their but-
tocks to the charging Duke and his desperate defenders. Then,
from among the dunes, a searing wind whisded, and arrows
slashed into the Saxons, cutting their laughter to anguished
screams.

Marcus Dumnonii pulled his horse around and saw a sight

150
that relaxed the cold fist squeezing his heart - a vision as from
the legends of blood: mounted archers stampeding along the
wet sand, firing as they galloped. Aimed with deadly precision,
the volleys felled the Saxons at the front ranks and allowed the
fisherfolk to retreat to the colonnade of the seafront villa and
watch shielded by the pillars as the cavalry smashed into the

Wolf Warriors.

Though outnumbered, the horsemen drove the berserkers
back from the sand verges and down onto the flat strand. Firing
from the perimeter, the archers slew several ranks of Saxons
before the Wolf Warriors, indifferent to death, clambered over
their dead and attacked the mounted bowmen. Several horses
went down shrieking under the swiping blows of battleaxes,
and Marcus lunged forward to join the fray. Behind him came
the shouting fishermen.

An ax split the skull of Marcus's horse and sent him
plummeting into the wet sand. A howling berserker reared
over him, and the bearded head flew from its shoulders severed
by the stroke of Excalibur. The bareheaded boy-king pulled his
palfrey around and cut a swath through the barbarians, keeping
them from the fallen duke. Amazed beyond feeling his pain,

Marcus watched Arthor curvet direcdy into the thickest knot
of the melee, striking with both front and rear hooves even as
his relendess blade cleaved bone and flesh and his shield fended
blows with the improbable image of the serene Virgin Mother.

Then, he volted around the fallen raiders and pierced deeper
into the fray, driving the enemy ahead of him. In minutes, the

Wolf Warriors had become corpses.

Bors Bona

Into Londinium, Bors Bona led his troops with all the panoply
of the Empire — eagle standards, plumed cavalry, glittering
phalanxes of bronze-armored foot soldiers — in a parade bois-
terous with trumpets and drums. The rigorously disciplined
men, vigilant from their many fierce batdes in the north,
wore fearsome aspects. Their beardless faces and hard eyes had
witnessed every atrocity of war, and many displayed scars from
their triumphs in brutal close combat. The commanders wore
ancient breastplates, centuries-old heirlooms made of gold and
silver plaques engraved with the heads of emperors.

Boot-jawed and narrow-eyed, Bors Bona bore a pitiless,
intent expression hardened by a lifetime of hostility, a lifetime
made infamous for sparing no one, not even infants, in the pagan .

villages he destroyed. With military rigor, he arrayed his men
in parade formation across the mosaic-paved courtyard before
the governor's palace and saluted the city's magister militum,

Severus Syrax. The governor imperiously greeted them from
the reviewing balcony, wearing the blue, wide-sleeved dalmatic
of a magister.

Later, among the pink-marble columns and gleaming statu-
ary of the breezy and sun-filled throne room, Bors Bona
squinted at Merlin's form dressed in red and black garments and
wolfskin boots. 'You're garbed like a damnable barbarian!'

Gorlois shrugged. 'When among the Saxons

'Not good enough, Merlin!' Bors Bona, his iron-gray hair
brush-cut close to his skull, turned a tight stare on the magister
militum, who sat on the cushioned marble throne with beringed
fingers interlocked before his coiffed beard. 'He's gone over,

Syrax. He's fornicating with the enemy!'

Severus Syrax rolled his eyes at the very thought of the old
wizard, with his dragon-socket eyes and lipless adder-smile, in
sexual collusion with anyone. 'Please, Bors, calm yourself. The
wizard brokers peace with our foes. There is precedence for
this with Vortigern . . .' (

'Don't even whisper that dungful name in my pres-
ence!' Bors Bona spat. 'Vortigern brought the Saxons here as
mercenaries to fight Christian warlords - and the pagans turned
against him. And they've been on our island since, demanding
tribute, stealing more land, killing our people.'

'This is different, Bors.' Severus Syrax pointed, palm up,
to the wizard. 'Merlin has found a way to turn war into trade

— and to fill our coffers with gold from those who will not
have peace.'

'Gold!' Bors Bona appeared about to vomit. 'No amount of
gold can pay for the blood and land our people have lost to those
savages. I've brought my army to Londinium to make you see
sense, Syrax — or, if necessary, to beat sense into you.'

'Oh, my!' Syrax's kohl-rimmed eyes widened. 'Merlin, Bors

Bona has just threatened me.'

'Perhaps he should sleep on this—' Gorlois said, feeling the

Furor's strength coiling through him and unwinding like fog.

He reached out and slapped a hand on the warlord's shoulder
guard. Bors grabbed his sword, but before he could draw it, his
eyes fluttered and he sagged to the ground.

Keeper of the Dusk Apples

R e x Mundi stepped forth from the brake of dew-heavy grass
and lilies and stood agape before the woman with eyes of banded
light and fiery hair streaked white-blonde.

She ith a goddeth!

'Lailoken!' she scolded hotly. 'What mischief are you up
to? Y o u thought you could trespass Yggdrasil — but I am
devoted to stravaging the twilight lands of Dusk searching for
this dim country's rare wine-apples. And I found you! What
mischief now?'

'No mischief, goddess.' Merlin bowed politely. 'I am merely
looking for my own body. I came up here for the wider
vantage.'

'Your own body!' The goddess looked askance at him.

'What is this — this conglomeration you occupy, demon?'

'Just as you see, goddess.' R e x Mundi doffed the conical
wizard's hat and exposed henna hackles, black wire-whisker
beard, and feral eyes in a leathern mask. 'I am conjoined with
good man Dagonet, his kindly familiar Lord Monkey, as well
as an old cohort of mine, Azael . . .'

The goddess backed off with a warding gesture. 'What evil
do you brook? Y o u carry another Dweller from the House of

Fog? How can that be?'

Well, you see, goddess, Azael is conjoined in countervalence
with a Fire Lord . . .'

The tiffanies she wore seemed to jump on her large body as
she staggered backward. 'Abomination! The Fire Lords are the
enemies of the gods! Y o u dare carry such a fierce being into
the Storm Tree? You dare!'

Wun, Merlin! Wun before thyee thmiteth uth!

'Goddess! Please!' Merlin bowed his head low and spoke to
her slippers of crushed blue velvet. 'The Fire Lord is not here
to wage war with the gods. He is enmeshed with Azael. Y o u
see, they are in balance. If one were to separate for long from
the other, this sorry assemblage would fall apart. Down below,
on Middle Earth, they can separate from each other briefly -
but up here, at this great height, even a momentary separation
would fling us all downward.'

'You are a Dweller from the House of Fog,' she whispered
with fearful anger. 'You he.'

Wun! Wun wight now, Merlin!

'No, no, goddess!' Merlin stood straight. 'I was once such a

Dweller from the House of Fog. But now I live as a wizard, and

I speak the truth to you. Look! Look here at what I've brought
you.' He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of
rubies and sapphires. 'Gems from the Dragon's hoard!'

Keeper of the Dusk Apples's face glowed with sudden
interest. 'Lailoken! These are such fine gems! A true tribute to
the gods!' She stepped closer and took the rubies and sapphires
in her hands, her eyes shining. 'Our superb smiths, Brokk and

Eitri, will fashion wondrous jewelry from such beautiful stones!'

She smiled at R e x Mundi. 'You brook no evil, after all. Come!

Walk with me through the twilight land. With this tribute, you
have won passage into the Storm Tree.'

Duke Marcus's Pledge

The drummers, mirthful with astonishment to find themselves
yet alive, helped Duke Marcus to his feet. He hung between
them and scanned south, but the sea there lay in all its sparkling
clarity empty of warboats. He allowed himself to be hoisted
upon the planks of a fish-drying rack and carried triumphandy
through the cheering fisherfolk to King Arthor.

The boy-king had dismounted and knelt where the fallen
archers lay bloodied, dead and dying in the sand — the five
bowmen who had refused to partake of the faeries' feast. He
rose at the approach of the duke and the jubilant rush of the
women and children from the villa and the driftwood hamlet.

'Arthor - I owe you my life, as does this village.' The
drummers propped him against a sand bank. 'But I have received
word that my army is enmeshed in battle two days to the west.

How did you arrive here so swiftly?'

'Lord duke, faeries guided and protected us!' one of the
surviving archers blurted excitedly. At the duke's nod, the two
bowmen related the strange tale of their night journey, the lost
rider, and the Annum breakfast. 'Is this so, Arthor?'

The king sighed. 'Yes, Marcus. Y o u owe your life not to
me but to Nynyve of the Lake, queen of the Celts.'

'The Celts have no queen,' Marcus informed the boy.

'Your mother was the last. So the druids themselves have
assured me.'

'But I've met with her—'

Y o u met with a daughter of the pale people.' Marcus shook
his head sadly at the boy's gullibility. 'She ensorceled you.'

'No!' Arthor stabbed Excalibur into the sand. 'I first met
her by daylight. The pale people cannot abide the light. And I
tested her. I immersed her in brine. If she had spelled me, that
would have broken it. Nynyve of the Lake is a true woman.'

Marcus grimaced with pain from his jarred leg. 'Listen, lad,

I am glad to be alive, no matter this blighted leg or if Lucifer
himself had saved me. I owe you my life, and if the future be
ample enough for me, I will repay you.'

'Repay me with your pledge, Marcus,' Arthor rejoined
swiftly. 'I am your king. I want you at my Round Table.'

'I owe you my life, not all the lands of the Dumnonii.' He
spoke through gritted teeth. 'The surgeons have fled. Find me

Cupetianus and have him fetch us wine. Wine is as good as
sturgeons for my pain.'

'Cupetianus is dead, lord duke,' a fisherman replied. 'He
leaped from the villa's rooftop at the approach of the Saxons.'

'Ha!' Marcus laughed darkly. 'You see, lad — fear kills men
as surely as the blade. I'll not offer you my pledge in fear or
for fear's humble sister, gratitude. No. Y o u want my pledge?

Drive the Saxons from the lands of the Dumnonii. Only then
will I bend my knee to you.'

Love in the Secret House

King Arthor cleansed his sword and shield in the sea, offered
prayers for the dead in the hamlet's chapel, and then rode hard
across the pastureland and back into the forest of giant trees.

Bedevere galloped to keep up with him, knowing full well
where he was bound. 'Sire! Remember the lost rider! Hold
back! Hold!'

Through the brambles Arthor shoved, crying, 'Nynyve!' -
until her deep-throated voice returned his call.

'Arthor, my king - come this way.' A glimpse of her
cinnamon hair appeared among mulberry hedges and wild and
sour rhubarb spurs. 'We can be alone together in this hall of
autumn.'

The young king dismounted, tied off his palfrey, and
shouldered through the hedges into a glade carpeted with
yellow leaves — a basilica of overarching boughs festooned
scarlet and gold by hanging ivy and misdetoe. Nynyve stood
before a fallen log studded with mushrooms and scalloped
fungus. A curious light lay in the clearing, an incandescence
of sunlight filtered through the forest awning as by stained glass.

In her white gwn with both waistband and shoes of ocelot, she
seemed a dangerous priestess.

'Who are you?' he asked sharply. 'Are you even human?'

Nynyve looked stricken, almost to tears. 'Oh, I am very
human, my king. I am as human as you. I am your queen.'

'You said you were my mother's successor, the Celtic
queen.'

'No, Arthor,' she corrected him softly and stepped toward
him. 'You said that. I only said that I was a queen. And I am.'

'Queen of what?' he asked gruffly. 'Witchcraft?'

'Do not be unkind with me.' Tears glinted in her hazel eyes.

'I love you - and your words hurt me.'

'Love?' The word took him off guard and frightened him.

'Is this more of your sorcery? Morgeu deceived me once. I
won't . . .'

'I am not Morgeu,' she said, angry and hurt. 'I am no witch.

I am no sorceress. I am your queen as you are my king. The only
magic between us is love. Am I not beautiful enough? Have

I not served you well enough? Have I done anything except
love you?'

Arthor's frown relented. 'I owe you my life — and probably
my kingdom.' He did not withdraw when she put her hands
on his chest. 'But, Nynyve — I don't know who you are. How
can I love you?'

'Why must you know to love?' She pressed her cheek against
his breast. 'We belong together in the Secret House of the

Wind, the abode of the spirit. I am not some soulful lover
whose depths you must plumb. I am your spirited queen whose
heights reach to heaven, beyond all that is known. Knowing
is the least of what we are, Arthor. In time, we will know
everything together. For now, just love me — as I love you.'

Despite his fear, Arthor put his arms around the queen and
pulled her tighdy against himself, wanting to sense her life in
his embrace. And the warm, vulnerable softness of her made
him feel strong and complicit with fortune.

Vampyres of Londinium

Sunset lowered its bloody knife into the west, and Morgeu
and pock-nosed Martius drove their tented wagon to the north
gate of Londinium. The gatekeepers stopped them, and the
enchantress spoke laughter to them. Guffawing and skipping
merrily, the guards opened the gate and admitted the wagon.

Following an inner vision of her father's soul that tugged at
the root-blood where her soulless child grew, Morgeu guided

Martius along Market Street, past the closed stalls and across
noisy, crowded Augustalis Square, where a late harvest festival
offered loud music and bear-baiting. They trundled on before
torchlit baths and stone-facade theaters into the old Rhenish
quarter, where the cobbled street dwindled to rutted earthen
lanes among stucco buildings. They left the wagon and horses
at a stable and proceeded on foot through the winding alleys
that stank of moldering refuse. A white shadow pursued them
through cramped warrens of corn sheds, servants' huts, and small
yard gardens where their trespass was marked by barking dpgs
and honking geese.

They came to the stained and chalk-scrawled back wall of
the governor's palace. 'My father's soul is in here,' Morgeu
announced, running to a small tile-and-brick shrine in the
wall. It belonged to an anonymous deity of former centuries
whose name had been chiseled away. With Martius's help,
the pin-stones that Morgeu identified with her magic slid free,
crunching a salty sound, and the shrine swung inward. They
entered a black conduit. Through dark without boundary, they
crept. Terpillius led the way, his soft voice guiding them within
the carious undersides of the palace until illumination granular
as mist seeped from ahead.

A dripping cavern opened before them, lit by no light save
a weird, glowing fog that drooled from the lime-crusted mouths
of carved troglodytes set high in the slick grotto walls. Out of
the dimly shining vapors, human figures rose dripping treacly
black sewage. Welcome, mistress, to the pit of the undead.'

Terpillius floated forward into the caHgjnous stone gullet. 'Be
quick with your offering or your life is forfeit.'

'Offering?' Martius groaned, realizing all at once what his
ultimate purpose was in Morgeu's design. Mewling with fright,
he drew his sword, and the enchantress peeled away his fingers
and threw the weapon into the curling fumes. There was a
sudden scrabbling sound, and out of the phosphorescent smoke
fanged faces lunged. Martius wailed and was gone, yanked into
the depthless smoke. A crunching sound and a wet smacking of
chops ensued.

'Now, mistress, you have earned the attention of the
vampyres of Londinium,' Terpillius announced. What is your
command?'

'Lead me along the palace passages to my father's soul!'

Morgeu ordered. 'Dark feeders, lead me to Gorlois!'

A tendril of glowing fog uncoiled before her and extended
into a vault of spelaean dark at her side, winding its way through
a gloomy tunnel where the intermittent drip of water echoed
like distant chimes.

On Fields of Battle

Bedevere saw the change in Arthor when the young monarch
eventually emerged from his forest seclusion with Nynyve.

Most of the day had passed, and the steward had despaired of
ever finding his king again, fearing he had been lured forever
into the Otherworld. But when the young man came striding
through the trees, Bedevere recognized the confidence of his
gait and the proud glow on his face. 'The faerie has taken you
for her lover.'

'She is not a faerie.' Arthor blushed, then scowled at his
steward. 'She is as mortal as I — and yes, we have pledged our
love to each other.'

He already felt impatient to return to her. Though they
had just parted and only a few minutes' distraction from their
passion had lapsed, he saw that the interval ahead, the range
of days before he would see her again, was a horizon broad
as sadness. Why do I feel this way — I who fear love because of my
sister's curse? How has Nynyve healed me of that cruel anathema so
quickly? How except by love — true love, soul-deep love, love by which
desire is but a shadow?

Bemused, he glanced back from whence he had come,
hoping for some further glimpse of her. He breathed the
rank, sweet odor of burdock on a turn of the wind and did
not care if the love he felt for Nynyve was magic or natural
longing. Her warmth, her softness, her fragrance in his arms
was so fundamentally right, he knew no wrong could come
of it. He felt his heart enlarging at the thought, expanding its
chambers for increased hopes and bigger dreams.

Bedevere brushed yellow leaves from the king's trousers and
straightened his disarrayed corselet. 'You conducted yourself
befitting nobility, of course — and there was no repeat of the
indiscretion that has so anguished you with your half-sister.'

Arthor sighed. 'We have pledged our love as man and
woman.'

'Then, sire, may we expect another heir to your throne
come summer?'

'Are you mocking me? Nynyve will sit beside me as
our queen.'

'If you remain king, sire.' Bedevere motioned to where
their horses waited. 'There is the matter of the Foederatus
invasion.'

'The queen has promised us victory in the lands of the

Dumnonii.' Arthor untied his steed and mounted buoyandy.

'The faerie will guide us on the fields of battle. They are her
allies — and now ours, as well.'

As Nynyve had promised, the faerie guided King Arthor
and his steward swifdy through the night forest, and they arrived
before midnight at the site of the clashing armies. From the
high, wooded ledges, the king and his man peered down on
the sparse torch fires of the two camps. Then, the landscape
shifted before their gaze and lay cold and blue as if seen in
winter daylight, though a moonless night covered the fields
and tussocks. 'Behold, sire! The faerie disclose the disposition
of the enemy forces! It is miraculous!'

Arthor mouthed silent thanks to the mysterious queen and
guided the dazzle-eyed Bedevere down luminous trails to the

British encampment. They found the duke's commanders in
the war tent arguing over the deployment of troops for the
coming dawn's batde. At first, the strategists would not accept
that Arthor had journeyed to Neptune's Toes and back so
quickly, and they disputed his report of the Foederatus line.

But the young king and his steward accurately predicted where
scouts could penetrate the enemy defenses, and when they
returned to confirm Arthor's analysis, a new battle plan was
drafted.

During the night, the duke's army repositioned itself in
accord with what the two night travelers had witnessed in
their faerie vision. Before dawn, the assault commenced, mute
and ordered, and by first light, the Britons found themselves
positioned above and behind the invaders. Caught in a vise,
the Foederatus troops scrambled to redeploy — but too late.

From the forest vantage, King Arthor, accompanied by the
duke's astonished commanders, watched the flanks of their army
swing together, crushing the disarrayed enemy and leaving
behind them the shattered remnants of an invasion force that,
hours before, had appeared invulnerable.

Mother Mary, I have been fulfilled in both love and war. My prayers
have been answered. The invaders have been routed. And I, at least
briefly, have overcome my shame and known love — true love —for the
first time. Nynyve understands me. She forgives me Morgeu's deception
and assures me that I can effectively rule, no matter her cruelties. Is it magic that she plies to make me feel so happy and sure when I am
with her? I should care - especially after the atrocity I engendered with Morgeu. I should care. Yet, I do not. Mother Mary, I feel my soul is
already shared out between me and Nynyve. She partakes of my very
substance and unifies all that is dual in me. With her as my queen,

I believe I could faithfully serve both pagan Celts and Christians. If
only now you will pray to our Father to spare Merlin . . .

Seat of the Slain

From the Nightbreak Branch of Yggdrasil, the earth below
appeared as a vast mosaic of pearl snowpeaks, spangled umbers
of autumn forests, beige deserts, and the blue enamel of the
sea. The stars above the planet's wide curve shone like lights
of a distant house. R e x Mundi stared in unappeasable awe at
the global vista and at the goddess walking through the amber
sunlight, her languorous beauty swathed in tiffanies and gold
chains like bright webs of sunfall.

Keeper of the Dusk Apples held admiringly to the twilight
the rubies and sapphires that Merlin had given her. 'I will use
these to make a scabbard for my love, the Furor.'

R e x Mundi nodded as Merlin stared down through veils
of cirrus and fleecy cumulus, searching for his lost body. But
bis eyesight was too weak to see anything meaningful at this
distance.

Athk her for help.

'Goddess, I know the Furor will be delighted with your gift,'

Merlin spoke. 'Though, I dare say, it's best not to mention from
whom you received this Dragon's pelf.'

'Lailoken, you still reason like a liar, like a true Dweller
from the House of Fog.' She paused on the lily-paven path.

'No one can he to the All-Seeing Father. And he would surely
spurn a gift obtained from one as hateful to him as you. There
is, however, one way in which you can permanendy hide your
trespass of Yggdrasil.'

'Goddess, I sense I will not much like what you have to
say.'

'Surely not, Lailoken, surely not.' She smiled kindly at him.

'But this is one way in which you will also be able to find the
fleshly form that you have so foolishly misplaced.'

Merlin released a dark sigh. 'What way is that, goddess?'

'You must climb the World Tree to its highest bough and
there sit upon the Seat of the Slain.' She ignored the shocked
expression that grew white circles around R e x Mundi's monkey
eyes. 'From that high position, you can see into all nine worlds.

Nothing is hidden from there. Y o u will locate your lost form.

Also — and this is most important — once you are placed upon
the Seat of the Slain, you may speak with the Norns — the

Wyrd Sisters. Ignore Urd, the Sister who will strive to befuddle
you with memories and regrets. Ignore, too, Verthandi, the

Sister who will entice you with insightful perceptions of what
transpires on Middle Earth. Y o u may quiet them by giving
each one diamond from the treasure you carry in your bulging
pockets. Yes, I see them.'

'Goddess, I keep these gems not for myself,' Merlin hur-
riedly explained. 'I will need them to work magic for my
king . . .'

'Find some other way to work your magic, Lailoken.'

Keeper of the Dusk Apples gestured across a field of pink
clover toward a pine forest old as the world, where bare cliffs
and scree disappeared in solar mist. 'Climb to the Seat of the

Slain and give all your treasure to Skuld, the Wyrd Sister who
touches the future. Only she can shape a way for you out of
the Storm Tree without the Furor seeing you. Then, I can
give him my gift with a lovely story - and you can escape
with your lives.'

Lot's Plea

After the defeat of the Foederatus invaders at Fenland, the duke's
commanders and their troops deferred to King Arthor with no
small grumbhng about the young upstart whose luck in batde
had won him Marcus Dumnonii's gratitude. The old generals
reluctantly allowed the boy to lead the army. He marched them
east along the coast and then, at the precise hour that the faerie
signaled him, turned his forces north to swarm over the hills
of White Hart. The commanders vociferously protested this
maneuver, for it exposed them to Foederatus archers. In fact,
the enemy chieftains had been certain that the British would
not turn inland at White Hart for that very reason, and when

Arthor did, they were caught unprepared.

As the invaders fled north, they ran direcdy into the forces
of Lords Kyner and Lot descending from the forested heights.

Again, the duke's soldiers participated in a slaughter of the
enemy, and the commanders shared their amazement at the
young warrior's prescience. After that second great victory,
no one in the lands of the Dumnonii ever again questioned
the authority of King Arthor. The invasion was broken, and
the straggling survivors of King Wesc's autumn campaign were
rounded up swiftly by mounted patrols.

Frayed tassels of hghtning appeared in the south over the

Belgic Strait announcing the onset of winter storms and the end
of large enemy reinforcements by sea. But also, the gray clouds
carried the Furor's power, and Arthor saw no more of the faeries
under the overcast skies. Nynyve's magic had exhausted itself.

At a makeshift shrine of moss rocks on a wooded hilltop of

White Hart, Arthor knelt to thank the faerie for helping him.

Lot found him muttering gratefully to the rocks. 'The faerie
prefer that you address them among the trees, sire. They've no
love of stone.'

Arthor pushed himself quickly to his feet and faced the old

Celt with a hot blush burning his cheeks and ears. 'Brother

Lot! I — I wanted to acknowledge the faerie's help in my
victories . . .'

'You need make no explanation to me, sire.' Lot sat upon
the moss rocks, then glanced at the king through his tufted
eyebrows. 'May I sit in your presence, sire? My bones are tired
almost to breaking. Hunting invaders in the woods has gotten
harder for me.'

Arthor nodded. 'Of course.' He saw the graven lines of
exhaustion in the gaunt face, the bruised flesh under the sunken
eyes — and something more: careworn furrows on the block of
his brow. 'I read worries in your face, brother. Share them
with me.'

'My wife — your sister — she is gone.' Lot pulled his bearskin
cloak more firmly about his naked shoulders. 'The messages
from the north are troubhng my boys, Gawain and Gareth.

They fear for their mother. Often, she has gone into the wilds
to work her magic for the good of our island realm. But never
for this long.' Lot reached out with a big-knuckled hand, and
when Arthor took it, the iron grip made him wince. 'Sire, I
plead with you - please, I cannot live without my wife. I fear
she is in dire trouble. Use all your power and influence as high
king of Britain to find and return her to me.'

The King's Decision

By the time King Arthor returned to Tintagel to accept Marcus

Dumnonii's pledge, distressing messages had been received
reporting sightings of Morgeu the Fey at Verulamium. 'She
has overthrown a chapel,' Arthor informed Lot. 'She has worked
frightful magic on that site, and the people there believe she
colludes with Satan.'

Lot smiled as he strolled with the king through the slate-
paved ward of Tintagel. 'She is fearless, my Morgeu.'

'I have dispatched messengers to summon a reply from her.'

Arthor pointed with his jaw toward the rookery on the casde's
highest spire, where carrier birds came and went. 'But, as you
know, Verulamium is in the realm of Platorius Atrebates, and
he, Severus Syrax, and Bors Bona have outrightly refused their
pledges. I cannot command them to search for my sister. Yet,

I will not relent. We march east as soon as the troops are
freshened. Scouts have already gone ahead. We will find her.'

In his heart, Arthor prayed that Morgeu had fallen from the
face of the earth. He hoped that Merlin, who had disappeared
months before and been glimpsed only in demonic aspect, had
taken her with him to oblivion. Even as he stood in the chapel
with his mother, the abbess Ygrane, and Duke Marcus knelt
before him and declared him rightful king of Britain, Arthor
gladly entertained dark thoughts of Morgeu's demise.

And yet, something of mercy bloomed in him, inspired by
the love he had found with Nynyve. Is not the caring I feel for

Nynyve what Lot shares with his wife? Am I to begrudge him his
love for Morgeu because of my fear of her? He is a man as am I, and
with the same ardent feelings. I must banish my cruel thoughts against

Morgeu and replace them with a changed purpose — the clemency of a
king, the compassion of a man.

Later, when he sat before the Graal at the Round Table, he
experienced a deeper shame for having wanted Morgeu dead.

Kyner, Cei, Lot, and Marcus sat to his right, discussing the order
of march for the arduous winter trek to Londinium. Kyner and

Cei believed they should wait till spring before they exposed
themselves to the British warlords inimical to the king. Lot and

Marcus thought that the longer they waited, the greater the
chance that the eastern realms would succumb to an alliance
with the Foederatus.

When the Table looked to the king for a decision, he
took the Graal in hand. The love of one man for God, for
all humanity, that this chalice represented, overwhelmed him
with the dishonor of his wish for Morgeu's death. He carried
the Graal to the railing of the balcony that overlooked the sea.

On the shoulders of the land, the ocean sobbed and tossed its
white hair as if sharing his sadness. And there on the beach, small
with distance, Nynyve walked, the waves wiping her footfalls
clean behind her.

The clemency of a king — the compassion of a man.

We march — as I have already promised Lot,' the king
decided, emboldened by the sight of his lover. 'The tour of
my kingdom continues as soon as our troops are ready for the
journey. Announce to Urien Durotriges, Gorthyn Belgae, and

Platorius Atrebates that their king is coming for their pledges.'

Arthor retrieved Excalibur from where he had slung his
sword-belt on the back of his chair and, gripping the Graal
firmly in his other hand, departed the counsel chamber.

King Arthor's Broken Heart

Arthor confronted Nynyve on the beach where he had first
met her. She ran to him and stopped when she saw the Graal
in his hand, a starburst of frazzled light. 'Why did you bring
that with you?'

'It is the cup from which the Savior drank at the Last

Supper,' he told her proudly. 'The Annum have sheathed it in
chrome and gold filigree. It purifies my feelings. It made me
clear about my duty to Morgeu, a woman I thought I hated
to death. I've brought it here to hold our love, to purify our
feelings for each other.'

'You believe our love is tainted?' A hurt look troubled
her.

'You are a queen of the old ways and I a Christian king.'

He offered the Graal to her with both hands. 'Your magic gave
me the courage to love again. Now I offer you this emblem of
my faith. Take this, as I accepted your magic, and come with
me on my tour. We will be wed in Camelot - by both ancient
and Christian rites.'

Her eye moved to the crashing waves. 'You don't trust
me.'

He shook his head. 'Trust comes from experience.' He
waited for her anxious gaze to touch him again before he
went on, We have chosen to love each other in the Secret

House — yet we must live here, in the soulful world of strife
and loss. I trusted you enough to overcome the fear Morgeu
taught me. I gave you myself despite that fear. Take the Graal
and come with me on the tour. We will discover each other
as husband and wife.'

'If I hold the Graal, you will see me for who I am.'

'I have sworn to love you, Nynyve.' Arthor stepped close
enough to smell the apple-sweet scent of her through the briny
tang of the sea. 'Now you must trust me. Take the Graal.'

Nynyve reached out with both hands, and at her touch,
a shimmer of vibrant light passed between them. Her cin-
namon curls lilted in the seawind, and her hazel eyes gazed
proudly at him.

'You are the same!' he said in a gust of relief. 'You have
not changed.'

'Look in the chalice.'

In the gold bell of the chalice, Arthor saw a grove of
apple trees and ancient menhir rocks carved with futhorc.

On a mirror-still lake eight swans drifted, and as he watched,
they reached the shore, where they shivered and molted and
transformed into white-robed women wearing black veils.

'Who are they?'

'The Nine Queens of Avalon - that your mother spoke
of.'

'But there are only eight. . .' He nearly dropped the chalice.

Y o u - you're—'

'The Ninth and the youngest,' she finished for him. 'When
your life in this world is done, I will come for you with the
others, to bring you to Avalon. There, we will dwell together
until the twilight of the gods.'

'But why?' Arthor stepped after her as she backed away.

'Why did you come to me now?'

'You needed to learn love, Arthor.' She began to fade, a
mirage of spindrift. Sorrow followed her as she parted from the
man who had won her heart by his bravery, his virtue, and his
physical beauty. She reached forth to touch him once more, this
man she had not expected to love. Her duty to the Fire Lords
and the other queens had been fulfilled by protecting him in
his crucial first days as king. What followed, what hope that
they would ever be reunited, depended now entirely on how
well he completed his fateful life. And as she slipped from his
sight, she answered the beseeching hurt in his eyes: 'Morgeu had
hardened your heart. You doubted you could love again. N o w
you know you can - and your destiny once more is whole. Go
and claim your kingdom.'

W I N T E R

The Life of Death

Blood Stalkers

Thunder woke the night. Autumn stars rubbed their needles in the
dark above Londinium, and no storm clouds obscured the celestial
vista, yet thunder shook the walled city on the River Tamesis. In
the governor's palace, Gorlois rose from a dreamless sleep and saw
the screams yet to bloom in the suites and corridors around him.

The stone walls breathed like smoke, translucent to the
visionary gaze that the Furor had instilled in him. Sitting up
on the straw pallet in the windowless crypt where Severus

Syrax, fearful of Merlin's magic, kept him after nightfall, he
saw the guards outside his door jolt awake. The cavalcade of
thunder was a warning from the Furor.

Gorlois threw off the lambswool blanket that had warmed
him in the chill cell and pulled on his wolfskin boots. He laced
them across the cuffs of his loose black pants, and hurriedly
buttoned his red vest over his raven blouse. Evil approached.

He needed the protection of his talismanic garments.

Through the hazy walls of stone and time, he watched white
shadows fluttering in the dark corridors like moonshadows
spinning on water. When they passed lanterns and wall-sconced
torches, the flames flapped green. They moved with swift cer-
tainty through the mazed passages, hurrying toward his crypt.

'Vampyres!' he shouted, warning the guards. 'Unlock my
door!'

'Silence, Merlin!' a guard rasped. 'We're here to protect you.

171

Don't divulge your presence to Bors Bona's spies and assassins.

Commerce with the Foederatus is treachery to them. They'll
gut the magic out of you if they get within swordstrike.'

Gorlois backed away from the door at the sudden shrieks
that burst through the planks from the stairwell. The guards
outside the door shifted uneasily. They drew their swords, and
as the blades cleared their scabbards, more death shouts echoed
in the long corridor from the opposite direction. They were
surrounded.

The Furor's wisdom ached in him. Blood stalkers posed
a formidable challenge to the marked man. Though Gorlois
possessed the Furor's deep sight and Merlin's magical power,
he lacked the experience to master these swift and powerful
creatures. In frightened awe, he gazed through gray walls at
luminous shadows blurring closer, condensing to human forms
of smooth beauty, ivory figures clothed in wispy fumes of
ancient tunics and gowns. The eyes in their glowing faces
outstared the night and opened into vacant skulls, tenements
of darkness.

Then, he saw her. Morgeu the Fey striding through the
spellbound gang, a living flame of bright, crinkled hair and satin
red robes. Her black eyes, small and close-set, pierced into a
dimension of glamour. One glance at the trembling guards, and
they slumped to the ground, asleep. Her hand touched the lock,
and it clacked open with a spit of blue sparks. The door swung
inward, and she entered with arms outspread, 'Father!'

Mother Mary, my heart is sore. The woman to whom I gave my heart
is a ghost! As I had feared from the first, Nynyve is no mortal woman.

She has left me with a darkness inside that I am not equal to. What
is my flaw that love betrays me yet again? I weep for this woman who
swore to love me for ever. Our love will not be changed by death —
and yet I weep for her. I weep, because she is gone where only the
wind of the afterworld can know. I am less without her. Still, nothing
is lost, for she was never alive, only a ghost. And her loving me, the
full happiness I knew in her embrace, was an emptiness from the first

—given me that I would understand all in the end is harvest. How will

J ever love again? What mortal woman can compare with my love, my

Nynyve, my queen of twilight, my woman from the wrong side of the
mirror? When I confronted Mother Ygrane about this, she admitted that
she had summoned Nynyve from Avalon. The Lady of the Lake is my
queen beyond this life. When next we meet, I too will be a ghost. This
fate frightens me. I told Mother Ygrane so. She believes that the love

I've earned with Nynyve is worth the fear I must endure. Nonetheless,
all this feels so — unnatural. When I was a mere ward of Kyner's,
a chieftain's servant in his household at White Thorn, my faith was
simple and clear. What the priests taught was sufficient knowledge for
me to live my life and face my death. But now — now that I am king,
so much has changed. I wish I were once more a simpleton with a
sword. What Ygrane and Merlin have shown me is far more than
what any priest knows — far different, too, than what the Scriptures
teach. Having loved a woman of the afterworld, I glimpse inside my
heart this foolish youth, all by himself between heaven and earth.

Proud Parting

Ygrane, abbess for the Holy Sisters of Arimathea, blessed
her son's army before it departed Tintagel for the long and
dangerous journey east to Londinium. She stood on the trestle
above the gate and held the Graal aloft as the king's men arrayed
their personal guard behind him: Chief Kyner's Christian Celts
in their leather cuirasses, Lord Lot's warriors in buckskin and
fur, and Duke Marcus's officers in polished bronze helmets and
strip-metal armor.

'In spring, I will come to Camelot after the Round Table
and this, our Graal, are installed and your pledges secured —
and I will bless you again with these same words: " Y o u are the
hope of Britain. Your blood will be the tears of generations.

Gifts of God, you have come to be given. And what you give
will lead us who follow you to the thankful days. Hold fast,
brave warriors, to your faith in God and to each other. Hold
fast against the ancient order of might and brutality. Y o u are
protectors of the meek. Your strength champions mercy and
love, and your bravery defends our perilous order. Love well,
and there is no end to how loved you shall be."'

King Arthor led his commanders and their guards through
the gates to where the combined troops had stood listening to

Ygrane's blessing. They cheered as she turned and raised the
sacred chalice toward them. Then, they fell in behind the king
and marched after him among the rumbling supply wagons.

'This is a proud parting for an uncertain venture,' Lord Lot
declared to the king as he rode alongside. 'What of your sister
and the mother of my sons? Have you forgotten my plea?'

'Brother Lot,' Kyner spoke from the other side of the king,

'your wife is in Verulamium. There are three unpledged realms
between us and her. Have patience.'

'I will go to her myself' Lot decided. 'I will run a scouting
expedition to the realm of the Atrebates.'

'No,' Arthor stated flady. 'I need you at my side. We
are riding into the dark season, and you are my best winter
warrior.'

'I will bring your sister to you, sire,' Cei offered, leaning for-
ward on his mount to stare past his burly father, Lord Kyner.

'You!' Lot's aged face shook with disdain. 'I don't trust you
to protect what is mine. Y o u killed my four clansmen after the
king promised them safe exile to the north.'

'They were traitors — assassins!' Cei shouted back. 'I am
seneschal. I must defend the king!'

'And by what fell judgement will you condemn my sons'

mother, eh, Christian Cei?' Lot charged ahead and spun his
horse around to confront the others. 'I will go and protect
what is mine.'

Cei kicked his horse forward, and Kyner seized its reins and
pulled his son up short.

'Enough, you two!' Marcus danced his white steed between

Cei and Lot. 'We are not leaderless men anymore. We have a
king. We must obey him or our perilous order is already lost.'

'Then what do you command, King Arthor?' Lot asked
coldly.

Arthor stared down Lot's furious stare. 'I command you
to stay at my side and guide our winter campaign.' He cast a
baleful look to Cei. 'Seneschal — this is your chance to make
good what turned had between you and Lord Lot. Go — and
do not fail me.'

Wonders of the Storm Tree

R e x Mundi climbed among scree rocks and cliff boulders onto
the auroral selvage of Yggdrasil. Night rainbows fluttered among
the prosperous stars. Blue and green draperies of cold fire wafted
in an invisible wind.

Thith ith like a dweam! Dagonet breathed with rapture the
spice-laden air of the Storm Tree. Do you weally know where you
are going?

'Up,' Merlin replied. 'The Seat of the Slain is on the Raven's

Branch, the highest bough of the World Tree. We have a long
way to go.'

Let uth thimply wun off! Dagonet suggested. We will find your
body down below, away from thith thtwange wealm of the gods.

'You heard the Keeper of the Dusk Apples.' Merlin paused
the body of R e x Mundi on a shelf of night. 'The Furor has an
all-seeing eye — and now that his mistress has found us, he is
sure to see us as well when they meet. And when he does —
he will smash us to dust, and we'll all be ghosts. Unless

We thit in the Theat of the Thlain and bwibe the Wyrd Thithter
of the future to help uth ethcape. Ith thith twue?

Before Merlin could reply, a deafening caw threw R e x

Mundi to the moss-clumped ground. Twisting his hackled
head, the composite being gazed past the brim of his hat at
a dark span of wings blotting the fiery stars. 'Stay still and be
quiet!' Merlin whispered. 'It's a r o c '

A wock? Dagonet felt R e x Mundi quaking with the deep
vibrations from the huge wings. It wookth wike a bird!

With a rush of wind, enormous talons swooped out of
the dark and plucked R e x Mundi off the ground. Dagonet
screamed, but Merlin forced the body to give that fear no voice.

He fixed his attention on the chrysolite cliffs they had climbed
and the amber bands of dusky forest below diminishing in the
pouring wind. Other boughs swung into view, bosky obscurities
of giant pines wormed with eerie lights. Fire snakes slithered
upon the starspun waters of still pools. Centaurs drowsed there,
lulled by the orphic scrawls of light in the black water.

The roc released R e x Mundi above a nest of gaping
hatchlings, and Merlin snapped open his wizard's robes and
glided past the hungry beaks. An irate roc-cry followed the
falling body into the night shadows of the forest. Dagonet's
fright found a way out and, wagging a scream like a bright
banner, R e x Mundi crashed among brittle branches and came
to rest in the incandescent mists beside a slick pool. Fire snakes
sunk out of sight, startled by the noise of their crash.

Dagonet peered over the shaggy ledge where they had
landed and groaned to see the earth reduced to an aquamarine
stripe under the white enamel horn of the moon. God's gwiefl

Are we there yet?

Mother Mary, I have sent my brother into harm's way. Cei is
a good soul with a brutal mind. He meant well when he slew
the four assassins sent against me from Lot's camp. Even so, his
good intentions contravened my direct command and have provoked

Lot's darkest suspicions of me. The old Celt already believes I am
untrustworthy simply because of my faith in our Savior, whom he
calls the nailed god, the foreign god of the desert tribes. No doubt,
he believes I secretly ordered the execution of his men. He believes
me capable of such duplicity. I dread his wrath should he ever discover
that I have fathered the child his wife carries. Was it that fear that
inspired me to send gruff Cei to retrieve Morgeu from Verulamium?

I was afraid to send Lot - afraid Morgeu would reveal to him the
truth of the child's paternity. If I lose Lot and his fierce warriors, I
lose all hope of completing my winter campaign. I need his brave men
and his expertise of the north country. And so, I have put my brother
at grave risk. Mother Mary, forgive me and intercede with your Son
and our Father for their forgiveness. Protect Cei, for he goes against
great wickedness, and I am in dread for his soul.

The Night Marchers

Huddled in a leather mande with leopard-skin hood given as a
gift by a Libyan prince to his father, King Arthor stared into the
night mists, waiting for sleep. Rest did not come direcdy, even
though the youth was exhausted from long, watchful riding
and several days of fitful sleep. He worried that he had acted
precipitously in sending Cei to retrieve Lord Lot's wife. Cei was
strong and brave but surely no equal to the sorcery of Morgeu
the Fey.

Out of the crawling mists, figures loomed. Marchers filed
among the trees. How had these intruders eluded the sentinels? The
king struggled to rise and warn the others, but he was paralyzed
as by a spell. Mute and staring, he witnessed the drift of a slow
throng, thousands of people — Britons and Celts — slogging out of
the fog. They bore horrible wounds, gashed faces, peeled skulls,
lopped arms missing, some crawling legless. Many were women
and children, stripped naked, their entrails in their hands.

These were the island's slain, murdered by the fierce invad-
ers. They had marched to their king, demanding retribution.

Arthor gazed among them, searching for Cei. Anonymous
corpses shuffled past, all turning to stare grievously at him.

'Wake, sire!' Bedevere shook Arthor to alertness. 'You suffer
a dream.'

Arthor sat up into the bracing cold. He gawked about briefly
at the hawthorn thicket that sheltered him for the night, saw
the campfires flickering in the distances, heard a harp twanging
slumberously and the watch droning the station of the night.

In a low voice, he moaned, 'Bedevere — in truth, I'm scared.'

'Of a certainty, sire.' The steward faced into the nocturnal
depths of the forest, where shadows frothed in the haze. 'We
are yet alive - and so fear is right and just. We'd be fools to
feel otherwise, given the great mission put upon us.'

'Put upon us by the dead.' Arthor sunk deeper in his
mantle.

From the deep pocket of his sleeping gown, the steward
withdrew a long-stemmed Coptic pipe and a herb wallet.

'The dead stand as silent chorus to our God-given mission,
yes.'

'God-given, Bedevere?' Arthor cast him a tired look.

'Which god?'

Bedevere calmly replied as he stuffed the pipe, 'There is
only one God, my lord. Y o u are distraught by your dream.'

'I have seen the Furor, Bedevere. And not in a dream.'

Arthor chewed his lower Up, remembering his life as Kyner's
savage son, when he had ventured into the hollow hills. 'I
stared into his mad eye. He's completely mad.' He nodded
with certainty. 'Completely.'

'But the Furor is not God.' Bedevere opened a tinder pouch
and struck a spark with firesteel and flint. 'He is merely a god
among many others — a demiurge . . .'

Arthor glared at his steward. 'I know that. I'm not a
pagan.'

'Forgive my misunderstanding, sire.' He puffed a soft ring of
sweedy aromatic smoke. 'Draw on this. It will help you rest.'

Arthor waved the pipe away. ' N o medicaments for me.

I'm not ill. Just scared. I won't elude my fate in potions and
vapors.'

Bedevere smothered the fragrant herb with his thumb, and
a sheen of wonder glazed his sleepy eyes. 'Yes, you're right, sire.

There is no medicament for what the dead convey to us.'

Mother Mary, Ifear the gods. I still have nightmares of my tour of the
hollow hills — of the Furor's one, mad eye glaring at me, dooming me.

Except for Merlin's intercession, I would have died that frightful day.

Where is my wizard? Can I even call him my wizard? He installed
me as king and departed for where? For hell, as Marcus believes?

He is gone, and I am king. Perhaps that had been his intention all
along. Yet, I need his magic to counter the power of the gods. They
are set against me — the Furor and his ilk. And our Father will not
strike them for me. Did not His own Son say, 'He makes His sun
rise on the evil and on the good?' That is Matthew five, forty-five,
and I trust those words. I trust that God loves all, the good and the
wicked, and so His only Son taught us to love our enemies and bless
those who curse us so that we shall be as just as our Father in heaven
is just. But I am not just. I am king, and am prejudiced against
the enemies of my people. Forgive me my weakness, Mother Mary,
and pray to your good Son and our just Father for forgiveness of my
intolerance of my enemies. And — if this is at all possible — return

Merlin to me.

Wolf Warriors

The devastating defeat of the Foederatus invaders in the lands
of the Dumnonii had inflamed the north tribes with a bloodlust.

Many vehement warriors banded to cross the Belgic Strait and
attack the worshipers of the nailed god, the slayers of forests,
the alien magicians who maimed the land into plowed fields and
trapped it under nets of roads, fences, and cities of torn stone.

The bands proudly called themselves Wolf Warriors, for they
dared to sail into the boreal winds, predacious as the Furor's
lupine packs.

King Arthor, ably advised by his warlords, had established
swift lines of communication by bird and road that connected
all their territories to the west, from Lot's north isles, through

Kyner's hills, to Marcus's peninsular realm. Attacks by the

Wolf Warriors were quickly reported, and ferocious replies
followed. Kyner's and Lot's chiefs, who had been left to
command the king's forces in the west, easily crushed the
small warbands that arrived. But in the Celtic domain of
the Durotriges, ruled by Lord Urien, the fanatic warriors
found refuge behind the gigantic earthwork entrenchments
and ramparts of Maiden Casde.

The siege lasted a fortnight, until the long darkness of the
winter solstice, when the Wolf Warriors rushed from their
citadel under the moonless night and fell upon Lord Urien's
camp. Arthor arrived, first from his pavilion, bearing torches
into a field of combat where all flame had been crushed by the
enemy. In the darkness, neuter shapes grappled. Arthor's palfrey
trudged unwillingly toward that blind equality of combatants,
unsure where to strike and where to flee.

The king dismounted and set his horse running from the
melee. 'We must wait for Kyner and Lot and more fire,'

Bedevere advised.

Arthor shouted above the cries of the wounded, 'You
wait! Urien is under my protection!' Excalibur lithe in one
hand, torch in the other, and his shield of the Madonna
strapped to his back, he charged, followed by his guards in
black leather armor.

Bedevere hurried to his side, short sword drawn and flashing
in the king's torchlight. The enshadowed democracy of warriors
thwarted quick identification, but the upheld torches attracted
the Wolf Warriors and their thrown hatchets. Several banged
off the king's shielded back, spun him around, and drew him
deeper into the fray. Bedevere struggled to keep up with him.

A blow struck him behind the skull with an ugly sound. Blood
flew, and he fell foul of hands that yanked him into darkness.

Raven's Branch

All the long night, R e x Mundi lay curled upon himself beside a
slick pool luminous with fire snakes. Two hippogriffs cantered
by in the chalky dark before dawn, their raptor heads underlit
by the shining water, their large wings folded back against their
sleek equine bodies. At Merlin's direction, R e x Mundi leaped
up, flapping his robes. The hippogriffs startled and reared back.

Swiftly, Merlin removed his cap, seized the Hon mane of one
beast, and leaped upon its muscled shoulders. While the other
creature galloped into the gloom, Merlin pressed the long cap
across the eyes of the winged mount and held it in place until
the fabulous animal gended.

Ith thith a good idea?

'Providence, Dagonet.' Merlin waited for the residual magic
in his cap to penetrate the hippogrifFs brain. We must seize our
opportunities as they present themselves. Raven's Branch is far
distant, and the gods dwell in these astral woods. Better that we
find our way swiftly to our destination than become prey of the

Wild Hunt. Don't you agree?'

Oh thertainly! Let uth away!

Merlin removed his cap from the beast's eyes but kept it
tight to the broad feathered head so that the slim magic in
the hat allowed control. They soared. The squawking of the
hippogriff and the thwack of its wings beating the dawn's bright
wind shook R e x Mundi's bones, yet his grip did not fail. Into
the sun's glare they flew, and the full splendor of the Storm

Tree opened around them. Under orange clouds that spanned
the gates of day, forests of obscure purple disclosed stone temples
of dolmen rings and oaken halls roofed in beaten bronze, the
shrines and hunting lodges of the gods.

The hippogriff carried them past terraced landscapes of
immense swards patterned with mazy hedges. Above these,
they galloped on the wind over wild gorges choked with
mossy boulders. Distant buttes appeared on the heights beyond,
their bases grounded among cloven rocks and the silver fumes
of cascades and filament waterfalls. Higher yet the hippogriff
mounted at Merlin's command, toward the indigo zenith,
where adamantine cliffs rose out of plateaus of gray, driv-
ing rain.

Far beyond these ranges of weather, the hippogriff carried
them to the topmost branch of the World Tree — a bleakly
barren expanse. The winged eagle-leonine-horse alighted on a
desert dune among warped and quaking horizons. R e x Mundi
dismounted, and the hippogriff shrieked with jubilation and
lofted away.

Behold thith evil world! Where are we, Merlin?

R e x Mundi looked about at the wasteland of sulfur sands
and shattered rocks under stars that flared like cactus flowers.

'This is the Raven's Branch. And there - there is the Seat of
the Slain!' He pointed toward a ferric mesa upon which a grim
throne of rusted and pocked iron sat beneath the reaping-hook
of the moon.

Battle Blind

The dark riot surged most violendy about Lord Urien and his
personal guard. Bloodyheaded, gaunt Urien stood in the middle
of a pile of fallen bodies, lit only by the rare flicker of a torch and
the sifted starlight. Arthor hacked his way through the whirling

Saxons, swatting with torch and sword. When he looked about
for Bedevere, the steward was gone, as were the king's guards.

He was alone in the midst of violence. That suited him. He had
been reared as a violent warrior, a protector, bred to throw his
life away for his chief. He had possessed no station in Kyner's
clan and had expected to die in batde from the day he first
took up a sword. If this night was that destined hour, he felt
no fear.

The fight washed about him with shrieks and a clangor of
steel. He hurled the torch onto the pile of corpses where Urien
fought and used the flap of light to mark his progress. Shield
protecting his back, Excalibur gripped in both hands, he whirled
savagely, cutting a swath toward the light. Soon, he stood beside

Urien, and the two unslung their shields and backed against each
other to fight their way through the reeling battle.

When Kyner and Lot arrived with their forces, they found

Arthor and Urien staggering with exhaustion. But by then, most
of the Wolf Warriors had been slain, and the batde had slowed
to a brutal hacking and hammering of exhausted warriors. The
reinforcements quickly dispatched the remaining Saxons, and

Urien, swaying dizzily, clutched at the gory youth at his side.

'Who are you?' he croaked, fatigued hand trembling to the lad's
blood-smeared face. 'You shall be rewarded for your valor.'

'I am Arthor,' the boy husked, barely audible. 'Your king.'

Priests and druids mingled among the dead, seeking the
wounded and offering spiritual solace to the dying. They
came upon the king and the chieftain on their knees with

Excalibur standing between them. 'The sword Lightning,'

Urien announced in his fractured voice. 'Crafted by Brokk,
smithy of the Furor. Stolen by the Fire Lords for Merlin. He
gave it to this lad — our king.'

'You are batde-blind, brave Urien,' warned a druid in the
green leather vestment of his healing station. 'He is Christian.'

'I would be batde-dead if not for him.' Urien clutched

Arthor's sword arm. 'We have bathed together in the blood
of our enemies. This is a king I can respect.'

In the moment that Arthor's heart lifted, he saw Kyner
shambling toward him. 'Your personal guard are dead, sire.

All of them, save Bedevere. We found him buried among
the dead.' The stout Celt stared darkly at his stepson. 'Did you
learn nothing as my ward? Y o u lead men, not sacrifice them.'

'Kyner, those men died that I might live,' Urien spoke up,
struggling to his feet with the help of the druids. 'I will honor
their deaths by pledging my clans to this king.'

Kyner took Arthor under his arm and hoisted him upright,
whispering to him, 'Is this how you will secure your throne —
buying pledges with the blood of those already sworn to you?'

Out of Londinium

Morgeu escorted Merlin's body through the subterranean pas-
sages of the governor's palace. The soul of her father, Gorlois,
had been marked by the Furor, and the enchantress, who had
been aware of this since she saw her father's mangled ghost in
the woods of the north, wrapped his head in a turban inscribed
with runes designed to break the god's influence.

Astonished to find himself alert and unimpeded by visions,

Gorlois lauded his daughter, 'You have greater glamour than
your mother ever did!'

'Hush, father.' Morgeu squeezed his hand as she led him
through the corridors unlit save by the spectral glow of vampyres.

'We have not yet won our freedom.'

He glanced fretfully at the blurred apparitions escort-
ing them in the dank tunnels. 'Where are you taking me,
daughter?'

'Out of Londinium.'

'But our work is here.' Gorlois gestured expansively at the
dark, dripping cavern. 'Syrax has brokered an alliance with King

Wesc. Bors Bona and Count Platorius are in his service. With
this bloc, we can crush that upstart sired on your mother by

Merlin's puppet, Uther.'

'Father, you are inside Merlin's body. We must draw you
out before the wizard finds us or your soul is lost.'

'You are a powerful worker of magic. When the wizard
comes for this body, slay him.'

'I am not that powerful, father.' They emerged in a region
of old clay drains and jointed cesspipes, where the feculent stink
burned their eyes and nostrils. 'I am but an enchantress. But I
do have the skill to extract you from this demon's form.'

'Extract me to where?' Gorlois asked, hand over his mouth.

'I am a ghost.'

'I am preparing a new body for you — as my child.'

'Your child!' His surprise echoed back from the dark deeps.

'I am your father.'

Morgeu squinted angrily at him. 'Would you rather be
a ghost?'

'I would rather keep this body. It has magic within it.'

They stepped gingerly along a ledge above a pool of sludge.

'Father, the Furor has marked you. Even now, that wrathful god
is working to unravel my enchantment. When he succeeds, you
will belong to him again.'

'That was not so bad.' He jumped over a stream of gray
sewage percolating through the bedding slates of the tunnel. 'I
saw into people's souls. I spoke with an authority that mastered
all who heard me. And I saw other things, daughter. I saw
terrible things in the future, far beyond our time.'

'Trust me, father. Y o u do not want to stay in this evil body.'

She pulled on his arm, guiding him toward a jiggling torchflame.

'The Furor and the demon Lailoken will fight over you — and
you will suffer. Accept the body I am weaving for you.'

Gorlois paused. W h o is the father of this body?'

Morgeu faced him anxiously and whispered, 'Arthor.'

Y o u r brother!' His shout boomed off the stone walls.

'Father, I am sorry if. . .'

'Sorry?' His perplexity vanished as a grin widened across his
face, and he clapped an arm over her shoulders and walked
with her toward the dismal light. 'You are a wonder beyond
my greatest hopes, Morgeu. Yes! A wonder! My father is king

- and I will succeed him. Yes! I admire your cunning. Oh yes,

I admire it very much — and I will be proud to have you for
my mother.'

Mother Mary, today commemorates that holy day you birthed our

Savior in a manger. By God's grace, this morning I will receive the
pledge of the Celtic chieftain Urien. I am grateful to our Father for this victory — and I am saddened by the deaths of my personal guard. Was

J wrong, as Kyner says, for sacrificing them to win Urien's pledge? A
dozen good and faithful Christian men slain for the allegiance of two
score clans of battle-fierce, pagan Celts. I am not a ruthless king — am

I? My guard were warriors. They fought at my side, and I shared
their risk. Yet, I am alive, and they are all dead, save Bedevere.

Good Bedevere. He has consoled me for my decision, declaring that I
acted from my heart and not my head and so won the fealty of Urien's
heart. He aids my mind as well as my physical well-being. I cannot
thank you enough for sending him to me. He is a man who notices
everything, every detail, and comprehends it all with pithy insight.

He has distilled his observations to a precise, one-word assessment for
each of my warriors. Kyner disapproved the loss of my guard, for, as

Bedevere says, my stepfather is the Optimist. For all his gruff bearing,

Kyner believes that virtue will be rewarded and good triumph over evil
as a matter of course. To sacrifce my guard in striving for victory, that is too aggressive for his optimism. As for Urien, Bedevere labels him the

Idealist, champion of noble purpose. My sacrifice is a noble act worthy
of the reward of his devotion. Lot is the Cynic, certain that every action springs from selfish motives. And Marcus the Fatalist sees all events
as inevitable — hence his willingness to ride against the invaders of his realm and accept the consequences as fated. Bedevere calls himself the

Realist, for he abhors speculation and strives to view the world shorn
of dreams. And me? When I asked him, he simply smiled and sucked
on his pipe. 'You,' he said, 'you are the King.'

Celtic Christmas

On Christmas morning, Lord Urien Durotriges, chieftain of the

Celtic clans of the coast, knelt before King Arthor in the temple
of the goddess Aradia and pledged himself and his clan to the
service of the young monarch. A cold rain drizzled through
the enclosing aspens, and fog climbed the hillcrest of Maiden

Casde, where three nights earlier Wolf Warriors had reveled.

The priests who accompanied Lord Marcus and Chief Kyner
refused to set foot in the pagan temple. They had advised the
young king to seek the conversion of both Urien and Lot,
but Arthor refused. He considered himself king of all Britain,
and Christians and worshipers of the old ways were equally his
subjects. With that in mind, he agreed to accept Lord Urien's
pledge within the ancient temple.

Bedevere reluctantly accompanied him. He remembered
nothing of the dark battle where Arthor had intervened to
save the Celtic chieftain's life. For an entire day afterward, he
had lain unconscious. Even now, three days later, his head still
ached from the blow that had toppled him into darkness, and his
wallet of medicinal herbs from the Orient offered no remedy.

The sight of his steward doddering between incense trays,
his bald head bandaged, stirred remorse in King Arthor. When
the elaborate ceremonies of chants, bard songs, stick dances, and
incense evocations of the Daoine Sid ended and Lord Urien and
his clan chiefs had all knelt before him and been blessed by the
touch of Excalibur, he sat with Bedevere on the temple steps.

Ritual fires blazed on the temple grounds, and druids in white
cloaks and five-sided clogs oversaw rites of torch-juggling and
round dances.

'Kyner admonished me for sacrificing so many to save

Urien,' Arthor said, noting the pallor of his steward's gaunt
cheeks. 'I'm relieved to find you well enough to attend these
rites. It's God's gift to me on the birthday of his Son, our good
shepherd.'

'Shepherding is a despised trade in the Holy Land,' Bedevere
said quiedy, watching the Celtic dancers spiral among the fires.

'Shepherds are like thieves. They graze their sheep on other
people's lands, and they pilfer. They're not allowed to fulfill
judicial office or serve as witnesses in court. No one buys
from them, for it can be assumed that they possess only stolen
property. And yet our Savior identified himself with them.'

'Messiah born in a manger — friend to tax collectors, lepers,
and prostitutes — executed ignominiously—' Arthor shook his
head. 'He delivered God's love to where that love is most
needed.'

'And so we find you, a Christian king, here among the
pagans.' Bedevere smiled wanly. ' Y o u are an unusual king,
sire.'

'Because I was not always noble.' He clasped Bedevere's

186
one hand gratefully. 'Until this past summer, I believed I was
lowborn. But there is no God-given difference between high
and low — I see that now. That distinction is an artifice. The

Savior knew.'

Bedevere nodded wearily. 'And he died for us to know
it.'

Awakening

Bors Bona awoke in a chamber paneled with green jasper
between slender columns of lapis lazuli. He threw off a mink
coverlet and stood in his nightshirt before a window three
times his height. Across the manicured lawns and topiary
hedges, beyond the brownstone palace walls, Londinium's
early-morning streets lay nearly empty. A few stars hung like
spurs above the tile roofs.

On the main boulevard, he watched a tented wagon clatter,
driven by a woman whose red tresses spilled from under her
hood. A peculiar feeling twisted in him as the wagon dwindled
into the distance.

The main doors, padded with blue leather and nailed
with brass stars, swung open, and Severus Syrax rushed in
accompanied by a frightened Count Platorius and a dozen
guards and half as many priests. 'You are well! Thank God!

Oh, thank God!' The magister militum pointed his guards to the
billowy masses of curtains beside the windows, and the priests
followed them there, swinging smoking censers and chanting
scripture.

Bors Bona ran both hands over his brisde-cropped cranium.

The last he remembered, he had been standing with his peers in
the throne room inflamed at their alliance with the Foederatus.

'What has happened, Syrax? Where's my sword? My armor?

Call my captain!'

'Bors! Bors! Y o u are well!' Severus Syrax and the sullen-eyed
count looked for the priests to signal that all was secure
before they approached the warlord. 'There's murder afoot
and soldiers slain.'

'Vampyres!' Count Platorius gasped, the discolored flesh
under his eyes darker for want of sleep. 'A horrid gang of
them!'

Bors Bona placed his fists on his hips. 'What've you done
to me, Syrax? Why am I unarmed and in this chamber?'

'I?' Severus Syrax appeared hurt. 'Dear Bors, I've done
nothing but protect you. Ask Platorius. Merlin enchanted
you.'

'He put you to sleep days ago,' the count confirmed.

'Where is that demon?' Bors yelled. 'Give me my sword!

I'll have his head.'

'He's gone, Bors. Gone!' Severus Syrax wrung his bejeweled
fingers. 'The vampyres carried him away.' He went to a corner
wardrobe and opened its doors. 'Your garments and sword are
here. When you're dressed, I'll conduct you to where your
troops are quartered. They have been concerned for you.'

'Help us, Bors,' the count pleaded, following him to the
wardrobe. 'Evil forces conspire against us. Severus and I, we
seek peace — and a lucrative trade relationship with King Wesc.

But strong evil opposes us — evil that has carried Merlin away.

He may be a demon, but he is a demon won to the service of
our Savior and of peace. And now evil has taken him from us
and thwarts our peace. Evil opposes us, Bors!'

'I, too, oppose you - or I did.' Bors lifted his swordbelt
from the wardrobe and unsheathed the blade. But now I am
in your hands and at your mercy, he said to himself, glad to
have a weapon in his grip. Who knows how my troops have
been compromised by you weasels while I've been entranced. 'I must
rethink my allegiance, comrades. Vampyres have seized Merlin,
you say. Well, then, I will not serve the unholy. Surely not

Merlin — nor his king should he, too, be a minion of such
evil. If peace is to be won by trade with our enemies, so be
it, though history has shown that such alliances are foolish.

Better that than a kingdom overrun by vampyres.' He slid
his sword back into its scabbard, satisfied that it was intact.

'My troops will winter in Londinium, and I will know more
of King Wesc and his will for peace - and, in time, we will rid
this city of evil.'

King Arthor and the Druids

Before departing Maiden Casde, King Arthor honored the
request of the druids to meet with their supreme hieros at
midday in the airy and elegant temple of the goddess Aradia.

Atop an altar of black obsidian stone within the blue marble
temple erected by the Romans three centuries earlier, the druids
had draped red ivy and a crisp, golden mass of misdetoe.

'Do you know the significance of this, sire?' the cowled
hieros asked, pulling back the sleeves of his green and white
robes to pass his hands over the altar of rough-hewn stone with-
out disturbing the plants arrayed there. His jowly face watched
impassively from under his hood, milky eyes attentive.

'Ivy spirals for the sun, searching for God.' Arthor saw the
surprise in the old druid's stare and went on, 'Twelfth letter of
the Ogham, eleventh month of the year, it is called Gort. The
misdetoe is not of the tree alphabet. It is the mystery of All Heal.

This I have learned from the Ovate, the doctor of learning, that
my stepfather, Lord Kyner, retained at White Thorn for those
of his people not yet won to the love of our Savior.'

A calm smile opened in the aged face of the hieros. 'It is good
you know something of the old ways, for I have summoned you
here to reveal to you the ultimate secret of our kindred faith.'

'I am a Christian king, lord druid.' Arthor spoke slowly, to
be certain the old man understood. 'Our faith is not kindred.'

'Oh, but it is, sire.' The hieros's clouded eyes gleamed
merrily. "That is the ultimate secret. And now that you are
king of the Celtic clans of both Lord Lot and Lord Urien, I
am free to declare before you the truth of our kindred faith —
that what you call Christian, the Faith of the Anointed One, is
the Ancient Faith we druids preserve.'

'My faith is the salvation offered by Jesus Christ.'

'A Hebrew.' The hieros drew back the hood from his
long locks of thinning gray hair. 'We druids are a priestly
caste descended from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem —
the very temple razed by the Babylonians five hundred and
eighty-six years before the birth of the Anointed One, at a time
when the Celtic empire touched the holy lands. We share a faith
with the Hebrews. The Anointed One, Yesu, is a Celtic savior
prophesied by our seers since the age of Solomon's Temple.

He is the All Heal symbolized by the mistletoe. On the rare
oak where this plant grows, our people mark a cross and carve
the branch with the name All Heal, which in our language is

Yesu] And behold our temples — not this Roman edifice, but the
shrines we have built with our own hands. They are constructed,
like this obsidian altar, of unhewn stone. Hu Gadarn Hyscion —

Hu the Mighty, who led our people to Britain - Mighty Hu was
a descendant of Abraham. He continued the ancient practice of
carving our altars from unhewn stone as has been recorded in

Exodus chapter twenty, verse twenty-five: "And if you make

Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for
if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it." The Bible
holds many of our druidic truths. The desert prophets Isaiah,

Jeremiah, and Zechariah refer to the coming messiah as "the

Branch." We teach, as well, that our deliverer is the Branch —
the All Heal . . .'

Arthor stopped him by leaning forward across the altar. 'As
your king, I accept your faith descended of Abraham and the
times before. I will not impede your religion as the Romans did.

But know this, hieros. The messiah has come. The old ways are
superceded by the new. My Savior declares in His own words,

'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the

Father except through me.' His is the way that I will follow.'

The druid nodded sagely. 'That is as it should be, sire.

Yesu is indeed the way — the All Heal of resurrection. But
remember this, wise king: The way is the way — and not the
destination.'

Mother Mary, my role as king continues to bring me into conflict with
all that I have learned as a child about our faith from the pnests.

The hieros insists the druids are Hebrews. I have asked Bedevere to
summon me a Hebrew, a rabbi from the synagogue at Sorbiodunum,
that I may converse with him and test these notions of the hieros. You
are a Hebrew, Mother Mary. Your Son is a Hebrew. The very center
of my spiritual life is informed by Judaism; so why am I distrustful
of the hieros's claim? The rabbi whom Merlin summoned is equally
skeptical but not outright hostile to the idea. Indeed, the Celts were in Jerusalem at the time of Solomon's temple. Indeed, the druids' forest
shrines are built of unhewn stone as the old books of the Bible decree.

Indeed, the Messiah that the prophets foretold is referred to by them as
the Branch — as is the Celtic yesu, the all-heal, the mistletoe. Other than confirming what the hieros told me, I've learned nothing new.

Should I pursue this knowledge? Bedevere tells me I am too young.

First, I must attend to unifying my kingdom. Later, he says, I may
pursue the mysteries of the angels and the demons — and of God. But for
now, there is practical work to be done. I am no priest, no philosopher
of the Church. Yet, I have seen enough in my short life to know that
there is more to this world than the Church reveals. Guide me, Mother
of God, to the knowledge I need to rule wisely.

Cei's Travels

Cei shaved his head, donned a hempen cassock, and rode
east disguised as an itinerant monk. To allay his fears of the
enchantress he had volunteered to find and return to her
husband, Lord Lot gave him a talisman woven from locks
of hair shorn from the heads of Morgeu's sons, Gawain and

Gareth. He traveled alone. Though King Arthor had pleaded
with him to take an escort of guardsmen, Cei believed he could
travel faster on his own.

He followed the Roman roads north and reached Aquae

Sulis in time to celebrate Christmas in the steaming public baths
with several courtesans and a flagon of vintage wine. He was not
eager to find Morgeu and gladly indulged his carnal desires on his
first long journey away from home alone. With a throbbing head
and a much lightened coin purse, he continued north through
a peaceful and well-Romanized countryside: vineyards pruned
and shrouded in hay-sheafs for winter, bare orchards neatly
arrayed upon the undulant hillsides, and numerous villas, where
he was welcomed as a holy man and compelled to participate in
baptisms, weddings, and funerals.

With the offerings given him for these services, Cei pursued
his pleasures in the magisterial city of Corinium. He was more
afraid of Morgeu than he had realized when he was with the
army — fearful of what enchantment she might place on him

— and he was determined to take what pleasures he could
from life before facing the witchy sister of his king. Outside

Corinium's gates, he doffed his monk's cassock and entered
as a warrior seeking his recreation. He enjoyed the N e w Year
games at the city amphitheatre, doubling his earnings at the
cock fights and squandering it all at the taverns and public
baths, enjoying the finest local vintages and comestibles and
the ardent attentions of the city's bawdries. In his drunken
attempt to win more coin for more pleasures, he lost his horse
and his sword.

All resources spent and the days growing colder, Cei
departed Corinium on foot with another pounding headache
and only a rusk of rye bread for provisions. He wandered
east for several days, seeing only charcoal burners and salt
peddlers on the cold, damp roads, all of whom demanded
his blessing, which he gave begrudgingly for a tinder and a
salt lick.

With the first flurries of snow, he found spoor that
prickled his flesh. A wildwood gang had jumped a woodcutter
and left him mutilated by his own ax among a cairn of rocks.

The man was not yet dead, and the bloody trail of the gang
still fresh. Cei knelt beside the mortally wounded woodcutter
and prayed with him until he died gurgling blood. The
unarmed warrior buried the corpse under the cairn rocks,
constantly flicking glances over his shoulder for the return
of the murderers.

Anno Domini 491

The new year entered bitterly cold and gray. The wildwood
gangs, desperate for warmth and food, stepped up their
attacks against isolated villas and estates, and the king's army
proceeded slowly through the lands of the Belgae, fanning out
to assert Arthor's influence among all the many hamlets and
thorpes of the sprawling countryside. Endless small skirmishes
occupied the royal forces within the dense forests and no
help came from the east, though Arthor dispatched numerous
messengers to the magister militum Severus Syrax as well as to
the elite forces of Bors Bona.

The self-proclaimed king of the Belgae, Gorthyn, was
himself raised from the ranks of the brigands that roamed the
land plundering farms, and he sat silendy in his redstone citadel at

Cunetio, declaring neither allegiance nor opposition to the king.

Every legate that Arthor dispatched to petition King Gorthyn
for help vanished. At last, the king decided to go himself.

'Have you learned nothing from the deaths of your personal
guard at Maiden Casde?' Kyner complained, confronting the king
as Arthor doffed his gold chaplet and polished corselet of brass
strips. 'You are our king. You jeopardize us all when you put your-
self at risk. Listen to me as your war counselor if not as a father.'

'Where is your son, Cei?' Arthor asked sourly. 'I sent him
to face Morgeu the Fey in my place - and he is gone.'

Kyner shook his ruddy face. 'I love my son with all my heart,
but he is a warrior and lives and dies by the sword. Once you were
such - but no longer. As king you must live for your people.'

'Cunetio is two days' ride on the Roman road,' said Arthor,
pulling a tattered tunic over his leather cuirasse. 'I will return
before your work is done clearing these woods of brigands.'

Wearing garments taken from the wildwood gangs, Arthor
and thirty volunteers galloped north. Only Bedevere dressed as
usual, in his gleaming bronze helmet crested with red-dyed horse
brisdes and his shining breastplates and buckler; on this mission,
he bore a long scimitar at his side. Every few leagues, the king
dispatched five of his men into the forests with instructions to join
themselves to the ranks of the brigands they encountered. When

Arthor approached the fastness of maroon stones, he entered the
hillside woods alone, keeping at his back the long rays of the setting
sun. He went direcdy to a smudgy line of smoke rising among the
trees and confronted a mongrel band of ragged and filthy warriors
roasting a sheep. Face smudged, hair greased stiff as a porcupine's
hackles, he appeared no different than they — a brutish youth, his
stare galled and mad-looking.

The reputation of Excalibur had not yet reached these hills,
and when the boy drew the sword to fend the aggressive gang,
the mirror-blue blade inspired fear but did not identify the
hand that wielded it. 'This sword fights with yours if you give
me food.'

After two fierce attempts to take the beautiful weapon from
the grimy lad resulted in a flayed cheek and a sliced ear among
the assailants, they welcomed him to the fireside and showed
him the weapons they had taken from travelers. Among them
was Cei's long sword that he had gambled away in Corinium.

Arthor showed no emotion at the evidence of Cei's mur-
der but ate sullenly of the roast mutton, his heart fisted in
his chest.

Seat of the Slain

In the Storm Tree, hours, even minutes, passed for days upon

Middle Earth; the higher one climbed, the faster time flew
below. And though R e x Mundi had only been among the
spectral branches a short time, Merlin well knew that weeks
had passed in Britain. Urgency gripped him to return to his
king and help him to fulfill his mission before the seasons turned
again to summer and Arthor was obliged to produce the pledges
of all the warlords and chieftains — or relinquish his crown.

Anxiously, R e x Mundi crossed the sere, burnt-looking plain
of the Raven's Branch toward the mesa that held a giant, rusted
throne. He climbed crevassed slopes among small trees black
and bent and visited by ravens. Scabrous packs of dire wolves
with crazed red eyes haunted the ravines of the mesa, guarding
chalked skeletons of nameless others who had trespassed this
way. The protective magic of the wizard's robes and hat kept
them distant and baying. -

Atop the mesa, pale dust lay in windrowed ribs that circled
the corroded throne like ripple waves in water, healing over
the footfalls after each step. The air smelled of ash, sour and
scorched. Overhead, evil stars burned in a purple sky.

Thith ith thcary!

Using scales of rust and corrosively pitted holes as footholds,

R e x Mundi climbed onto the Seat of the Slain. Once seated, the
cosmos arranged itself as a godlike hall, with the starry cope of
heaven raftered by galactic streamers and the encircling walls
the indigo horizons rigged with lyre-strings of lightning and
stately columns of thermal clouds. The earth itself served as
the great hall's floor, inlaid with divers-colored mosaics of
desert, mountain, and river terrains, the verdure of jungles,
the hammered glimmer of the sea.

'What you behold is but froth on the vastness of time,' a
voice crackled out of the air. 'All of history lies hidden.'

Qweat godth!

A crone in cobweb rags crouched beside R e x Mundi. Her
skull face leered at him through a withered mask of loose, gray
flesh and goggling eyes. 'Look at your lost homes, all of you.'

At her command, Lord Monkey witnessed again the sepia
dark of the forest canopy where it had clung to milk-wet moth-
er's fur. Dagonet glimpsed the poplar-spired villa in Armorica
where he ran playfully as a child with others his own height.

Azael, Lailoken, and the Fire Lord faced again the white fire
of all origins . . .

'Ah, Urd of the Norns!' Merlin greeted the Wyrd Sister,
speaking quickly before his peek at heaven robbed him of all
will to speak or live. He held a diamond before the crone's
mummied face, and its blue chips of light glittered in her bulging
eyes. 'This is the gift I have brought you so that I might sit here
and pay no heed to my past.'

With a cackled cry, she snatched the diamond from R e x

Mundi's hirsute fingers and was gone, a wisp of ash drift-
ing away with the howls the wolves relayed on the stony
slopes.

Igwew up in thplendor and love! I want to go back.

'No one can go back, Dagonet,' a gende voice turned R e x

Mundi's head. At his side on the giant iron throne sat a woman
of astonishing beauty with long hair pale as freshcut wood and
skin clear as arctic daylight, her eyes winterfrost, her high cheeks
haughty as the antelope's.

Her raiment, sheer moonlight, revealed shadowed charms
that brought Dagonet's voice into R e x Mundi's throat. 'You
are the motht beautiful woman my eyeth have ever theen! Who
are you?'

'I am a Norn — Verthandi, Wyrd Sister of present time.' She
brushed her cool fingers against R e x Mundi's ape-slanted brow,
and her touch stroked alertness like harp-strings within him. 'I
can reveal to you where every demon cowers in the House of

Fog and where every Fire Lord burns in the dark gulf. I can
show you your young king, Arthor, hunkering like a criminal
in a dark wood of the Belgae, murder in his heart . . .'

In a Dark Wood

Bedevere's plumed helmet, breastplates and buckler dished the
reflections of his campfire so brighdy that the wildwood gang
that rushed upon him out of the night forest struck him before
he moved. But the armor clanged emptily. The legate was
nowhere to be found among the dark trees or in their branches.

Arthor went with the gang when they reported this at the citadel
of Cunetio.

'Sound the longhorn,' the gang leader shouted to the guard
on the torchlit ramparts. 'One of the king's men is loose in our
woods. Sound the longhorn and run the manhunt.'

Moments later, a resounding blast sounded and echoed
among the hills of the overcast night. Arthor rode with the
manhunt. Wildwood gangs throughout the region criss-crossed
the Roman roads and fanned through the forests. By dawn,
they had not found Bedevere but many of their numbers had
been mysteriously slain, apparendy murdered by their own
comrades.

Before the gates of Cunetio, the survivors gathered to
ferret out their betrayers. There, among the carnelian shad-
ows of early morning, Arthor tore away his rag tunic and
exposed the leather cuirasse embossed with the regal dragon.

With his first blow, he slew the brigand that wielded Cei's
sword. And at Arthor's war cry, the score and ten of the
king's men scattered among the brigands began their savage
retribution.

From the rootheld burrow where he had buried himself,

Bedevere rose, the scimitar in his one arm flashing. The pan-
icked brigands tried to flee, but every direction was blocked by
the lethal swords of the king. Before the citadel could summon
archers to the ramparts, the killing was done and the king's men
dispersed into the forest.

By noon, Gorthyn had accepted King Arthor's terms of
surrender. With most of his wildwood gangs slaughtered, the
hope of defending Cunetio against Arthor's encroaching forces
had vanished. Happy to accept exile from Britain with all his
household, he opened the gates of the citadel. Arthor and his
men escorted his train of wagons south, and along the way the
two kings rode together.

'You are a cunning adversary,' said Gorthyn, a scar-faced
man with thick shoulders and black hair pulled back and
braided to a long rat's tail. 'You defanged me quick enough.

Had you more patience to wait for your army, you could have
crushed me.'

'The people of Cunetio are under my protection,' Arthor
replied blandly. 'My purpose is served by removing the malefactor
from their midst.'

'Do not mistake me, brother king.' Gorthyn's smile stretched
straight back like a shark's and showed yellowed and missing
teeth. 'Your charity is not lost on me. One man's malefactor
is another man's king. It has ever been thus.'

'Answer me this, then - one king to another.' Arthor met

Gorthyn's narrow, vexed stare. 'You have thrived on the deaths
of innocent wayfarers. Have you no fear of God?'

Gorthyn's laugh startled his steed, and he had to struggle
a moment to steady the animal. 'I am no heretic, brother
king. I am as true to God as you and know with confidence
that I will receive my reward from His hand when I die,
for I serve Him well.' He nodded at the bare trees and
frozen earth. 'God has placed man in this world for the
very purpose that malignity be set against him. Does not
the Bible tell us this? We are fallen from grace, brother
king. Fallen before the god of vengeance. And I — I am
his wrath.'

Fata Morgana

'Where are you taking me, daughter?' Gorlois asked from where
he sat on the riding board next to Morgeu. He looked about at
the bare fields scalded by the wind and shivered in the wool
mande that the enchantress had plucked from a dead guard
lying at the city gate, bloodless as a hung pig. 'And don't tell
me again "out of Londinium". I know not how many days ago
we departed that city, for each nightfall you plunge me into a
dreamless and forgetful sleep. I have lost my sense of time.'

'I am protecting you, father.' Morgeu held the reins in one
hand and with the other patted his bony knee. Even through
the black fabric of his trousers, she could feel his cold flesh. The
spell she cast on him each night to hide him from the Furor
was killing him. His soul, claimed by both the north god and
her magic, could not remain much longer in this stolen body.

'The Furor has marked your soul, and surely Lailoken is stalking
you as well to reclaim his flesh. We must defy both gods and
demons.'

'You have not answered my question, daughter.'

'The less I tell you, the less the Furor will know.' Her small,
black eyes scanned the brambly ditches of the broken highway
for Wolf Warriors or wildwood gangs. 'But know this -1 possess
the magic to take you back from the Furor. We are bound for a
ceremonial place that I've prepared before coming for you.'

W h y must we travel with that — creature? Gorlois glanced
over his shoulder at the bed of loam that filled the tented
wagon.

'Terpillius is going to help us with my magic' A smile
lifted one corner of her small hps. 'He will be instrumental in
freeing you from this demon's flesh and placing you where you
belong, in the body I am growing for you. It will be a beautiful
operation. A vampyre who thrives on the blood of destroyed
lives will help fit your life to my root-blood.'

Will I still be marked by the Furor?'

'I doubt even the Furor can undo that.' She sucked cold
air through her teeth, remembering the disfigurement of her
father's ghost that she had beheld in the north woods. 'He
drew your soul into the Storm Tree to reshape you so that
you would serve his purposes best within Lailoken's body. But
we will free you from this alien flesh and its servitude to the

Vinrathful god.'

Gorlois turned sharply in his seat. 'Will I lose my magic?'

'Your magic is the power within the demon's body.' She
placed a hand over her womb. 'I am making you a new body.

You'll not have the demon's strengths, but you will have your
own mortal power.'

'I will be king.'

'You will be Britain's greatest king. After you drive the
invaders from our island, you will take the fight to them, and
you will rule from Caledonia to Aquitania.' Morgeu snapped
the reins and ran the wagon along a straight stretch of unbroken
highway. Once, and recendy, she had been willing to serve the

Furor, to drive her anger hard against Arthor and Merlin. But
now, the Furor threatened her child. Not even this fierce god
would be spared her wrath when her children and their children
were at risk. 'The Furor believes he will conquer this land with
his brutal Saxons, wily Angles, and fierce Jutes and Picts. But
he is not the only one endowed with prophecy. I see a future
where Celtic magic unites pagans to the nailed god and defies
the Furor. Behold!'

From out of the shore of winter clouds above the forested
hills rose a mirage of elaborate casdes — glass towers and
stacked buildings immense as cliffs, highways uplifted on pylons,
viaducts curving smooth as ribbons among the glass turrets of
the future.

Wyrd Sister

Verthandi, in her raiment sheer as moonlight, pressed closer to

R e x Mundi where they sat together on the Seat of the Slain and
touched him with an alpine perfume of windy heights. 'If you
will give me the Dragon's hoard in your pockets, I will show
you all the wonders of the world as they are now. Do you want
to see again where once you lived free, Lord Monkey?'

The beast in R e x Mundi cluttered with delight as the lovely

Norn brushed the henna hackles from his ape-slanted brow. He
pressed himself into the assembled body's dark, staring eyes,
where a vision unfolded—

Sunlight pierced high galleries of looped vines and hang-
ing air plants, slanting among shifting vapors and pale boles
of immense trees. Birds clicked and fretted where the light
pierced, and monkeys screeched, fighting over a squashed fruit.

In the dark chambers of the jungle, butterflies glowed like
windblown sparks.

Encouraged by Lord Monkey's joy at the sight of his home,

Dagonet boldly called from within the psychic interior of R e x

Mundi — Let me thee again where I gwew to my dwarfed manhood!

Verthandi's winterfrost eyes darkened sadly. 'You would see
again the place where once you knew happiness, Dagonet. But
since you ran away, ashamed of your stunted stature, and left
your family's estate in the care of your younger brothers and
sister, the Wolf Warriors came and what is now is no longer
what was.'

The villa walls stood all but overgrown by black ivy, the
fluted columns smashed, the mosaics bedight with crawling
dodder. Past cracked urns, the vision entered a dusky interior
of weathersprung tiles, bricks toppled among rife weeds, and a
prolapsed ceiling of plaster that hung like tattered cloths.

J can thee no more! Take thith thad thight away from me!

Before Merlin could move to speak, Azael seized R e x

Mundi's tongue. 'Show me God. We followed Her out here
into the cold and dark — and we haven't seen Her since. The

Fire Lords say She is still here. Then, where is She?'

The wyrd sister sighed, then pressed her lovely hps close
to R e x Mundi's hairy ear and softly hummed a sad moun-
tain song.

In a ray of sunlight, a crowd of protozoans teemed, trans-
parent bodies swarming through vast halls of a palace of water
too small for the eye to see; their cilia beat together, excited by
energies of Brownian motion and the invisible magnetic fields
encircling them.

I don't underthtand what I'm theeing! What are theeth thingth?

'They're tiny, hungry animals, you fool!' Azael griped.

'You are seeing Her where She is now — at the dance,'

the Norn replied, miffed at the demon's anger. 'She likes
to dance.'

Before Azael could say more, Merhn seized R e x Mundi's
tongue. 'Show me Arthor. Show me the high king of Britain.'

Verthandi smiled and leaned closer, her pale hair covering
the bestial face of R e x Mundi with a scent like a load of hay.

Mother Mary, my brother Cei is dead. My fear of Morgeu sent him on
the hopeless mission that killed him. I should have allowed Lot to go,
as he had requested. I should have been my brother's keeper. Alone at
night in my tent, my face pressed in my pallet, I remember our child
years together, when I bested that oaf at every endeavor—horsemanship,
archery, swordplay, swimming, mathematics, languages, philosophy —
everything. It galled him. That, I believe, is why Kyner insisted that I, a foundling, undertake every aspect of his son's training, so that I would goad the lug to compete all the more strenuously. Excelling satisfied my
angry heart and soothed my embitterment at the low station to which

I believed I had been bom. But now, thinking how I smirked at his
frustrated bouts of rage every time I overwhelmed him with my prowess,

I weep for him. I have confessed this to no one, not even Kyner, whom

I have seen crying in chapel for his lost son. But I am not ashamed to
tell you. You know my heart and its hungers. You know the shadows
that trouble my mind with fear and doubt. And you know Cei, for
all his faults, was worthy of a better love than mine.

Riders of the North Wind

King Arthor sat counseling with his commanders in a pavilion
tent whose canvas walls buckled under the blustering wind. An
open flap revealed frozen fields under a hoar-frost sky. Bonfires
burned at wide intervals among the army's numerous tents, and
the smoke shredded and flew in windclawed shapes like furious
black harpies.

'We must go north,' Urien declared. He sat, like the others,
in a campaign chair covered with marten fur and set before a
tresde table where scroll maps lay unfurled and tacked. 'Though
winter sweeps down upon us, so too do the north tribes. They
have gotten around our Wall defenders by sailing across the
waters of Bodotria and Ituna. What manner of crazed warriors
are these?'

'Riders of the North Wind,' Lot said from where he
slouched with his fist to his mustached mouth. Since hearing
the report of Cei's death, he despaired for his wife. 'They believe
that the god of storms guides them with the wind and protects
them with hail and sleet. Winter is no obstacle to them.'

'But it is to us,' Marcus spoke. 'With Bors in Londinium,
there is no large army in the north to reinforce us. We
are alone.'

'That is why the raiders are bold.' Urien opened several strips
of messages from bird carriers and threw them on the table. 'We
have received frightful news from coast cities that have been
burned — Segedunum, Pons Aelius, Glanoventa, Alauna. And
worse yet, calls for help from inland cities that are besieged
by these Riders of the North Wind. Brocavum, Vindomora,

Lavatrae and Braboniacum are all in dire jeopardy. We must
go to their aid.'

'Why has Bors Bona taken his army south?' Lot grumbled.

'He has opened the north to the invaders and forces us to
engage them in winter. He expects us to be weakened by
this campaign — or destroyed. That is why he has withheld
his pledge. He allies with that oriental fop Syrax, who colludes
with the Foederatus.'

'No, not Bors,' Marcus said with a grim shake of his head.

'I know the man. He vehemently hates the invaders and would
never enter into alliance with them. My people in his court
inform me that he took his army to Londinium to dissuade

Syrax from capitulating to the Foederatus. But why he remains
there, I do not know. We must turn our forces at once to the
south, to Londinium.'

'No!' Urien's shoulder muscles bunched and his salt-blond
hair covered his face as he leaned over the table and stabbed his
finger onto the map of the highlands. 'If we lose this, the Picts
will hold high ground. The Saxons already have a foothold in
the lowlands. We will be caught in a deadly vise. We must
go north.'

Arthor looked to Kyner, who sat uncharacteristically silent
in his chair. The evidence of Cei's death had left him hollowed,
and he had said very litde since. 'What do you counsel,
father?'

Kyner did not budge, and his heavy voice sounded as if from
far away, 'The king protects the people.'

Arthor nodded and stood. 'We go north, into winter — and
we will crush these Riders of the North Wind.'

Snow in Londinium

As if in a polar dream, billowy snow fell upon Londinium.

Severus Syrax, Count Platorius, and Bors Bona stood upon the
high terrace of the governor's palace overlooking the River

Tamesis, the gray water steaming in the frigid air. Rare woods
burned in braziers atop tripods set upwind on the terrace so
that wisps of fragrant warmth laved over the noblemen.

'Several of my sentinels in the palace and on the highway
leading out of the city have identified the woman who led the
vampyre attack as Morgeu the Fey,' Bors Bona announced.

'Nonsense.' Count Platorius's prune-dark pouches beneath
his cynical eyes looked even darker by contrast with his ruddy
wind-burned cheeks. 'Morgeu the Fey is blamed for every
malediction in the land. Whenever the rain falls too heavily
or there is drought in the lands of the Atrebates, the farmers
blame Morgeu the Fey.'

'My sentinels are not doltish farmers.' Bors Bona looked
fierce in his studded casque and brass breastplate. 'They have
seen Morgeu before. These sightings were independent and
multiple. My men are not mistaken. Morgeu the Fey has stolen
away Merlin.'

Platorius lifted a bushy eyebrow. 'Are you not concerned,
magister militum, that this warlord has posted his sentinels
throughout Londinium?'

'I was invited here — same as you.' Bors Bona stepped close
to Platorius, and though he was shorter he appeared larger.

'I did not come with an army,' the count sneered.

'You do not have an army.' Bors Bona's smoky breath
snapped away in the wind. 'Your miserable forces are volunteer
reserves — yeomen who would rather farm than fight.'

'Enough.' Severus Syrax stepped between the two men. The
black curls that hung beneath his white fox-fur hat did not stir in
the brisk wind, so laden were they with scented oil. 'We dare
not fight each other. We have terrible enemies arrayed against
us. Until a season ago, Merlin served the upstart Arthor. But
that brutal boy wants no peace. Kyner's iron hammer scorns

King Wesc's offer of trade with his tribes — commerce that not
only would bring tranquillity to this island but affluence as well.

That is why Merlin has abandoned him and speaks now for the

Foederatus.'

'But at what price do we purchase this peace with the

Foederatus?' Bors demanded. 'Slavery? We are Christians. Will
we have pagans for our masters?'

'That is what Arthor would have us believe,' Syrax coun-
tered. 'He fears that we will accept King Wesc's offer and see
that peaceful — and lucrative — trade is possible. That is why
he sent Morgeu the Fey and her vampyres to snatch Merhn
from us.'

'But all know that Morgeu loathes Arthor.' The count
turned his leather collar against the blowing snow. 'Why serve
him now?'

'Her husband, the pagan chieftain Lot, has given his pledge to

Arthor,' Syrax answered. 'Morgeu, hke any ambitious mother,
thinks of her children - Gawain and Gareth. She will have them
on the throne of Britain, all in good time. For them, she schemes
and plots against us. We must stand together against her evil -
and the evil of her cruel brother, Arthor.'

Sleet Den

The tented wagon approached Verulamium in the driving
snow. Morgeu turned the horses off Wading Street and drove
them up the rutted road toward the hillcrest and the chapel
she had restored to a shrine. 'I sense someone awaiting you
in the chapel,' Gorlois said, his silver eyes half-lidded. 'He is
a dangerous man.'

'Hush, father.' Morgeu snapped the reins, and the horses
pulled harder on the slope. Across the gray landscape, the only
sound was the creaking of the axles, the chunting breaths of the
beasts, and the slow hasping of their hocks in the snow. 'You
stay with the wagon. I will take care of this.'

When they rocked to a stop before the chapel with its black
stones laced in wind-driven snow, Morgeu climbed down and
mounted the three iced steps to the shattered door. In the
gloomy interior, rays of snow-dust cut fiery paths from holes
in the ceiling and chinks in the stone walls, criss-crossing
among the smashed pews. A large, big-shouldered man rose
from where he had been crouching over a small splinter fire,
warming himself.

'Morgeu — you have returned at last.' The giant stepped
closer, crunching underfoot the bones of hares he had trapped
and eaten. 'I have come to bring you back to your husband,

Lord Lot.'

With wagging fingers, the enchantress clawed from the air
the name of the intruder. 'Cei, son of Kyner. Come closer to
me. Yes, step toward me - closer . . .'

Cei advanced, and his third step met emptiness and plunged
him into an abyss. As he fell forward, he glimpsed the near-liquid
blur of Morgeu's round face, and her fiery voice branded his
brain: ' Y o u dare to collect me hke baggage to be carried back
to its owner! For that insolence, you fall, Cei, son of Kyner.

Y o u fall to Sleet Den, asylum of the wicked dead!'

Morgeu threw furious laughter after him, enraged at the
very thought of being possessed, even by Lot, father of her
children. And her laughter curled to a shriek of exaltation
to know she had damned Arthor's brother — another small
retribution for the crime Merlin had committed against her
unborn son.

Cei plummeted into darkness, his eyes enormous against the
blind depths, arms outflung, startled cry snatched from him in
the rush of hot air. And snug inside his brain, Morgeu's voice
continued, loud and inescapable as a thought: 'The gates of Sleet

Den are open to the living only one day of the year — and not
this day. So you must wait to enter Hela's asylum, wait until
you die!'

He struck spongy ground, his breath knocked from him.

Gasping to breathe, he hurled himself upright, and a putrid
stench burned his mouth and lungs. He gaped about, terrified,
aware from the feculent stink and the ringing silence in which
he could hear his blood running wild in his body that he had
arrived at the soul's darkest destination.

Horrid shapes emerged from the darkness, limned by a vague
phosphorescence: Hunched human figures groped toward him,
jaws dislocated, eyes vacant or cored with green shadows. Gates
of jet ban set with sharp fins and tines stopped them, and they
pressed tighdy against this barrier, dimly seen, wholly silent,
mute phantoms annealed to darkness so completely they seemed
the very prefigurements of ultimate nothingness.

The Snow Ranges

A blizzard swallowed King Arthor's army. Flying snow driven
hke swarming bees stitched heaven and earth, and all direction
vanished. Into the forests they crammed, hoping to avoid the
blistering winds, and soon found themselves in a faerie world of
srheared and muted shapes and ponderous boughs that abrupdy
collapsed under their icy burdens. Continuous flurries spun
haloes round each thing.

'This is the Furor's wrath,' Lot groaned when the king called
him for direction in the whitening blanks of the forest. 'Pray to
your God for help. No mortal soul can find a way through these
snow ranges.'

Arthor heeded the north chieftain's advice and set the
army's priests to rotation through a continuous Mass. But
prayer seemed bereft of its effect, as though the swirling snow
canceled supplication as remorselessly as it erased direction.

Among the tossing treetops, an oceanic wind swept away the
holy chants and the direful pleas of priests and king alike.

Blessed with ample provisions, the army hunkered among
the snowdrifted trees and wagons and struggled daily to keep
their fires stoked. Sentinels, alert for Wolf Warriors, stamping
in the sleety cold of the watch fires, baffled by the slither of
white wind among the trees, cried alarms day and night. None
heeded the husky shouts until metal clashed and wounded
screams followed.

Wolf Warriors harried the army, bursting suddenly out of
the wild weather hackled in icicles, slaying unwary soldiers,
and disappearing again into the ghost depths of the forest. The
ground too hard for burial, the corpses of the honored dead lay
frozen in crypts of snow, and the slain enemy burned on pyres in
the bare fields downwind, the greasy smoke wardancing across
the white world.

'South, she,' Bedevere begged the king. 'Abandon the north
to this blight. Surely, the snow swallows our enemies as it has us.

Turn your army south. We will slog slowly for sure, but that
must be better than squatting here while the wind buries us.'

'And where is south, Bedevere?' The king lifted the flap
of his sagging tent with an explosion of snow-fire and faced
into the smoking blizzard. 'Where is any direction in this
forsaken world?'

Bedevere upheld a tailor's needle. 'This has lain with
loadstone - and now look.' He pulled a splinter from the tresde
table, affixed the needle, and set it afloat in a soapstone dish of
snowmelt. Each time the steward spun the needle floating on
the splinter, it aligned itself in the same direction. 'It is called
bait al-ibrah - "house of the needle" by the Moors of Gujarat who use this to navigate their ships. It always points north.'

'Wondrous!' the king shouted and lifted a bright stare to

Bedevere. 'You are as astounding as Merhn! At dawn we will
break camp. Now that we know our direction, we will push
on to save the cities of the north!'

Messengers of the Dead

The villagers of Verulamium witnessed the green flames that
flickered on the hilltop where Morgeu the Fey had reclaimed
their chapel for worship of Hela, goddess of the dead. The
priests rocked censers and prayed. But no one dared intrude,
and the flares of green fire appeared nightly. In the vegetable
cribs, onions sprouted green tendrils, veneria roots released their
feelers, barley grew hairy with rootlings, and chestnuts exploded
into unshelled shoots as though spring had seeped into the dark
places. Horses foaled in the ice wind, ewes dropped their lambs
in the snow drifts. And, most strange, stacked firewood — the
cut logs of oak, hazel, willow, poplar, and hawthorn - jutted
twigs and bloomed with sugary blossoms.

Morgeu's fertility magic overcame winter but could not
dislodge Gorlois's soul from Merlin's body. Nightly, Terpillius
rose from his bed of loam and joined Morgeu among her
smoking thuribles and the lapsing green flames that flared
from her wish-bringer plates. He curled up on her as she
lay on the black draped altar beside the lanky long body that

Gorlois occupied. With his hunger, he latched himself to the
root-blood of her womb, his face pressed to her belly, his hands
splayed over the chest of the wizard's form.

But Gorlois's soul could not be replevined from the flesh that
had stolen him out of his daughter-mother's womb. Terpillius
moaned with each gust of the green fire that surged life-force
through him from Morgeu to Gorlois. The blood-warmth
excited him even as the soul of Gorlois frustrated him by
refusing to budge. Merlin's body waited f o r the vampyre to
feast upon him but only after the soul had been dislodged. And
it would not move.

Morgeu threw Terpillius off her and sat up with a squawk
of defeat. 'Why is this not working?'

The vampyre slinked out of the temple as he did every night
after failing the enchantress. The foiled efforts only whetted his
hunger, and he slipped into the dark to pursue his need upon
the midnight plain of other wanderers' journeys.

Gorlois grew colder each day. He stopped speaking entirely
and dwindled hke a guttering spark in the clull flesh of the
wizard. And eventually, on a February morning with snow
blowing hke feathers, the messengers of the dead came for
him. The beauty of evil shone in their large eyes, not centered
in darkness but in light caught like dew in faces thinner, harder
than the living, and their rufous hair hke streaks of sunset or
smeared blood.

'Get away!' Morgeu demanded. 'He's not going with you.'

Come he must. With the silhouette of men, they stood
unmoving in the bright doorway, their hands of time outheld.

Come he must — or in his stead we will take the souls of your two
sons, who have been offered at the gates of the dead. Their long
hands opened, and in their dark palms they held shining the
locks of hair shorn from the heads of Gawain and Gareth and
given to Cei by Lot for safe passage.

All That Is True

'We have seen enough,' Merlin spoke for R e x Mundi upon
the ferrous and corroded Seat of the Slain. 'I have for you a
gift, beautiful Verthandi.'

'Show me no gift, R e x Mundi,' the lovely woman spoke,
her breath a waft from a spring morning. 'I want all that you
have of the Dragon's hoard — and in return I will show
you all that is true. Y o u will see everything that is as it is
right now.'

'You are too kind,' Merlin spoke swiftly before the others
that shared his body could voice their desires. 'But we have
lingered far too long in the Storm Tree. If the Furor finds us
here, we are doomed.'

'The Furor is far from here at this time.' Verthandi smiled
and pressed herself through her moonshadow raiment against
the lanky body of R e x Mundi. 'See for yourself-—'

The one-eyed god ambled through the fluorescent light of

Home, several boughs of the World Tree below the Raven's

Branch. Home — Asgard — lit by the shine of lunar vapors and
starsmoke shone warmly, its cedar rafters hung with hunting
trophies — vast stag homs, wolf pelts, fire-snake skins. Keeper
of the Dusk Apples sauntered beside her lover, her gold chains
and tiffanies flowing against her hthe body. In her hand, she
held a knife scabbard studded with the rubies and sapphires

R e x Mundi had given her.

The Furor's vast beard hid his smile of satisfaction, but his
gray eye gleamed to behold the bejeweled gift. 'And what will

I tell my wife about this?'

'Teh her what you will,' Keeper of the Dusk Apples said
in a voice low with desire and guided him toward the large
oaken bed.

We've theen enough! That gweat god Jwightenth me.

R e x Mundi pulled away from Verthandi's summer-scented
hug.

'Do not spurn me.' The Norn brushed her flaxen hair from
her frowning face. 'Would you rather take memories from the

Tyrant of the Past — or peek what might be from the Slave of
the Future?'

'My king needs me,' Merlin spoke through R e x Mundi. 'I
cannot tarry here any longer.'

'Let me kiss your brow and wipe away all memory of kings.'

She whispered intimately. 'Forget the past. You've hved long
enough in two worlds at once.'

Merlin removed a diamond from his pocket and held it up
to her between thumb and forefinger. 'Take this as our tribute
to your beauty.'

'My beauty needs no tribute but your devotion.' She gendy
pushed his arm aside and nuzzled closer with the genital odor
of damp forests. 'I will show you secret things — the Dragon's
lair, the Nine Queens, the lives of other worlds . . .'

The diamond in Merlin's grasp suddenly grew brighter,
inflamed by the energy of the Fire Lord within R e x Mundi.

At the sight of that, Verthandi fell silent. Her winterfrost eyes
looked lonesome as a seal's, and she took the diamond and
disappeared.

Hell

Cei wandered over scorched gravel that led among tarpaper
sheds huddled in the gray pales of a gothic city, where smoke-
stacks reared into a sky squalid with soot and fuming char. The
gatekeepers with rufous hair and malevolendy beautiful faces
had taken from him the locks of hair entrusted to him by Lord

Lot. In exchange for those talismans, they had led him here, to
this city of malice.

Alone, he crossed a yard of iron tracks and wooden ties laid
atop the black gravel. He walked the iron to keep from stepping
in pools of green sludge, until the tracks curved into a tunnel
stained by smoke. On one footstone stood carved the Roman
numerals M C M L V I I , and he questioned aloud, 'One thousand,
nine hundred and fifty-seven? By God's grace, what does that
mark mean?' Other letters above it made no sense to him.

'Gatekeepers!' he called to the rancid sky, where sheets of
flame leaped from the chimneys. 'Gatekeepers, I have wandered
far enough. Take me back! Take me back to the Gates.'

No reply came. Bruised from his fall, befuddled by all he
saw, he began to cry. Across wintry Britain, he had trekked on
foot, eluding brigands, trapping hares for food, and not once
had he despaired. In battle, encircled by foes and the screams
of dying men and wounded horses, he had not despaired. But
here in this stony fastness, among broken slabs of concrete and
gigantic tresdes of black iron with cold lanterns shining red and
green, he despaired for his sanity.

He passed through a landscape of more rails occupied by
large iron wagons on metal wheels, some of the wagons lettered
with words he half discerned: Midland Railway. Smudged men in
baggy garments and swinging tool boxes came crunching over
the gravel, and he hurried toward them, hailing them with a
robust voice. But they paid him no heed; when he reached to
stop them, they passed through him as though he were smoke.

Among leaning clapboard shacks beside a railway road, he
found others — youths in denim trousers and short leather
jerkins, their arms tied off as if to tourniquet a spurting wound.

But they displayed no wounds, only blue bruises in the crooks
of their arms and a glass phial dangling, stuck to the flesh by a
silver needle.

He crouched among them, and one of the glassy-eyed
boys saw him, rocked his tow-head anxiously, and muttered
something in a foreign language. Cei tried to touch him, and
his hand passed cleanly through the mumbling youth.

As the warrior walked on, he encountered sedge stiff as
wire growing from cratered hardpan. He shoved through it, a
phantom, a shade in these strange purheus of hell. He crossed a
dry clay gutter and wandered onto cinder paving that angled up
behind gray, wooden homes of blackened planks and decayed
facades. In the windowcorners, he glimpsed people, but no one
saw him or challenged his ghosdy trespass.

Mother Mary, we are alone in a wasteland of ice and snow. Bedevere
looks askance at me for using his unique sense of direction to push farther north, deeper into this frozen blight. I have trusted in God to protect us

— and I know that is childish. God has exiled us from Eden to labor in
pain through the fallen world. I have been arrogant in believing I could
drive the invaders from the north — and now I despair. Mother Mary,
please, petition our Father. Ask your Son to petition our Father. We
are suffering. I have blundered, and we are suffering!

Spit Out the Moon

The army's wagons stood frozen, their axles an agony to turn.

Snow packed the spokes. The horses, cloaked in blankets and
flanked by torchmen, struggled to move their loads through the
smoking snow. Laboriously, by inches, the army found its way
among the drifts of the forest.

Bedevere's 'house of the needle' helped the map-readers
locate the army's place in the shrouded world and trudge
toward the nearest highway - a road that would lead north
to Olicana, a municipality large enough to shelter the horses
and offer additional provisions for the soldiers.

Wolf Warriors repeatedly attacked the slogging troops,
materializing out of the dirty light. They cut through the
defenders, overturned wagons, and carried away butchered
sections of the horses. The assaults slowed the advance at first
and then stopped it altogether as the Riders of the North Wind
estabhshed themselves in the forests surrounding the road.

'We have crawled into a trap!' Lot announced grimly to

Arthor at a twilight war counsel in the king's pavilion. 'Our
slow progress has allowed the enemy's fleeter warbands to
gather around us. They have sacrificed a few raiding parties
to test our strength. Come dawn, the full brunt of the invaders
will strike!'

Arthor made what preparations he could. The ground was
too hard for defensive ditches and palisades, so he ordered the
wagons overturned. The limit on arrows that could be fired in
an engagement was lifted, and priests stayed awake throughout
the night, moving among the men, shriving souls and blessing
swords for the great batde to come.

Ice balls fell during the night, a fierce hail that bludgeoned
the defenders unprotected by the forest. At dawn, the war
shrieks began, and waves of Wolf Warriors closed in, lightfooted
as if carried to the fray by the gale winds. Garbed in pelts, the
invaders charged with animal fury as if the forest had disgorged
its beasts.

At the worst of the fighting, when the beastmen broke
through the wagon barriers and the melee trampled the fires
and the strategy tents, the eye of the storm passed overhead. All
about, the world lay blank, white, featureless, while overhead,
in a perfecdy blue sky, the gibbous moon floated, a crystal skull

— as if winter had devoured the earth and spat out the moon.

A miraculous tantara of horns sounded brightly under the
clear sky. Arthor and Kyner, who stood atop an upturned
wagon in bitter witness to the destruction of their forces,
saw them first — a long hne of muscular horses shouldering
powerfully through the snow, ridden by the clans of the north
and bearing the dragon banners they had earned with their
pledge to the king. Aidan, chieftain of the Spiral Casde, led
the charge, battleax swinging, eager to redeem his daughter's
life-debt to the boy-king.

Skuld

What hath happened? Why are we alone now? Where are the Nomth?

We can't thtay here vewy much longer. We thaw the one-eyed god with
hith lover. Will he come here when he ith done with her?

R e x Mundi sat silent except for Dagonet's nervous chatter-
ing. Even Lord Monkey sat still within the assembled being,
mesmerized yet by the summer-rain scent of Verthandi that
hngered in the space where she had sat beside them on the
rusty Seat of the Slain. Merlin looked out over the bone-strewn
slopes of the mesa and beyond to the series of dunes that rippled
away hke surrounding lines of force. At the horizon, stars shook
hke fists in a claret sky and the moon hung like a brittle and
riddled skull.

Across the wasteland, a figure came strolling, at first broken
upon the planes of heat that sliced the distance, then whole and
seeming to walk in midair splashing among watery traces, then
augmented once more to the ground - a child, a young girl no
more than five years old. Her strawberry hair hung lankly in the
heat, her limbs and face smudged with ash, the tattered frock
swaying on her petite frame brown and molded as if patched
from dead leaves.

Who ith that thmall child?

'That is the third of the Norns,' Merlin replied, 'the Wyrd

Sister called Skuld.'

How do you know thith?

'I just know.'

The girl slid down the last sand reef and climbed the
mesa. Soon, she stood before the giant throne with her head
tilted back, looking up at R e x Mundi, a curious expression
on her dirty face. 'You're not supposed to sit there. That's

All-Father's chair.'

R e x Mundi bent over and extended a long arm that was
yet far too distant to reach the child. 'Come up and sit here
with me,' Merlin invited. 'I would hke to speak with you.'

The child shook her head. 'You look scary. And you're not
supposed to sit there. That's All-Father's chair.'

'It's all right. Your sisters said so, and they sat here with me
just moments ago,' Merlin said and then tried to inflect R e x

Mundi's voice with hurt: 'Do you really think I'm scary?'

'Yes.' She shook her head vigorously. 'You have darkness
in you fighting with light!'

Merhn attempted a laugh and it came out as a harsh cry that
forced the child back two paces. 'Don't be afraid of me. I'm

R e x Mundi - Lord of the World. I'm not one being but many.

I have inside of me a monkey, a man, a wizard, and darkness
and hght — but they are not fighting. Fighting? Oh no! They
are — dancing! Yes, they're dancing. They hke to dance. They
are friends of God.'

'Really?' The child stepped closer. 'You know God?'

'Intimately.' Merlin tried on a smile and dropped it when
he saw the fright in the child's eyes. 'Your sister Verthandi just
went with us to visit God at a dance in a palace of water. Azael,
tell the child - aren't you and the Fire Lord great dancers?'

Azael remained silent, until Merhn mentally voiced the
thought, Dog ashes — that's your destiny if we don't get out!

'Sure, I love to dance, little girl. I'm wild for it.'

The child reached both arms up. 'I want to see the mon-
key!'

Creatures of Light

When the messengers of death came for Gorlois's soul and
showed Morgeu the locks of hair from her two boys, Gawain
and Gareth, her heart began hammering in her chest. 'You can't
have my sons.'

Then, your father we will take. Their breaths sifted over her
with the sad smell from pillows crushed by fevered heads.

'No!' Morgeu backed away from the silhouettes in the door,
their sticky red hair clotted with blown snow. Morning's gray

February hght wrapped itself around them hke some brighter
aspect of their presence woven from snow and storm-shadows
out of the wintry air. In that glare, she could not tell if there
were three or four messengers. 'He is not my father anymore.

He is my child now. I hold him to my root-blood.'

This knife will cut that root. A blade of flame opened like a flare
of lightning in the hands of the one behind, briefly underlighting
a visage of shameful beauty, lewdly evil, before the knife was
hid. Gorlois comes with us or your sons we will take.

She had counted three, definitely three. Slowly, she con-
tinued retreating backward, her hands reaching behind until
shef felt the fabric of the altar. 'Who gave you the locks of hair
from my sons? Who dares put their lives in your cruel hands,
your filthy hands?'

From Cei come these locks, given him by their father himself. So
freely given, now freely taken. They stepped into the chapel, their
hair hke rusted spikes in the shadows, their figures congealed to
darkness save the lucent shine of their beautiful eyes.

'Then Cei can take back the locks he gave,' she spoke hur-
riedly, her hands feeling with frantic urgency behind her, touch-
ing the warm metal of a wish-bringer plate where incense yet
burned. 'Those locks were not his to give, and he can take them
back. They are not freely given what are not his to give.'

To the asylum of the wicked dead he has been flung, and now
through time yet to be he wanders, awaiting the message we bring that
will end his aimless roving. The voice that carried these words
brought with it weariness, weight, the gloom of failure.

'Listen to me, messengers of death—' With one hand, she
clutched a wish-bringer plate, with the other a hot thurible. 'I
set Cei upon his timeless roamings. I will have him back — and
he will reclaim the locks he has given you. My sons are not
yours to take, not yet. And this, the child at my root-blood,
is mine as well. For now, you will take nothing of mine. Do
you hear? Nothing!'

Morgeu whipped both her arms forward, casting steaming
thurible and smoking incense plate at the grim visitors. Her
aim was true, and each magical implement struck one of the
messengers, smashing them to fumes. The third rushed her, the
hghtning blade aimed for her womb. She caught the knife hand
by the wrist in both of her hands and found herself gripping
an arm strong as an axle, her grimacing face confronting a
countenance of ethereal beauty evil with disdain. Her knee
kicked forward, found unexpected softness, and a cry hke ice
snapping. The knife arm relented, and she turned the blade and
drove it deep into the creature of hght.

Eufrasia's War

Aidan's reinforcements broke the Raiders of the North Wind
from behind as they fell upon King Arthor's army. Under the
blue eye of the winter storm, Celts and Britons slaughtered Picts,
and the fields trampled to slush under the attack glowed crimson.

By the time the snowy gale winds began howling again, the
king's army had destroyed the fur-clad invaders. Their corpses
sat up in the pyre flames that consumed them, as if attentive
to their souls climbing the ladders of greasy smoke into the
gray sky.

'All Britain offers you gratitude for what you've done this
day Chief Aidan,' Arthor said to the chieftain when he and his
field-commanders entered the king's war pavilion. 'We were
doomed, trapped in the open, until you swept down hke the
wrath of God!'

'Britain's gratitude should not go to me, sire,' Aidan said,
folding back his cowl in the king's presence and exposing the
traits of his hard life, his smashed nose and missing ear. 'This is

Eufrasia's war. My daughter insisted we come south from the

Spiral Casde to offer you our swords in your northern campaign.

I and the other clan chiefs thought that gesture imprudent in
this season of storms — but Eufrasia insisted that, as you'd not
accept her hand in marriage, her life-debt had to be paid in
foe's blood.'

'I will draft her a letter of gratitude by my own hand,' Arthor
promised. 'This day, she is Britain's savior.'

'Save your hand for Excalibur, sire,' said Aidan with a proud
smile. 'Eufrasia is here among us. Her archery felled a dozen of
our enemies — and from horseback no less. Daughter—'

From among the northern clansmen in their kilts and loricas
of leather-hooped armor, a slender warrior stepped forward,
an archer in tawed leather boots, green breeches, padded gray
jerkin and white cowl. With the hood unlaced, blonde tresses
spilled forth as Eufrasia bent her knee before the king.

'You placed your life in jeopardy for Britain?' Arthor
asked, astonished. 'The winter ride alone was arduous and
dangerous.'

'I came to serve you, King Arthor,' she said, lifting her chin
and exposing the confident curve of her jaw, 'I who would not
have life this day had you not put your hfe in jeopardy for me.'

'You and your rather have won your place at our strategy
table.' Arthor took her hand and urged her rise. 'For the remain-
der of this campaign, your counsel will be joined with ours.'

Arthor did not release her hand but led her instead to the
tresde table and the unscrolled maps. Hours before, he did not
think he would scan these drawings again. Standing before them
with the maiden beside him, he looked closely at her as she
scrutinized the terrain, and she seemed more lovely to him
than he had noticed before.

Mother Mary, I know your prayers to our Father sent Aidan to us when
we needed him most. His fierce clansmen have broken the invaders' hold
on us and strengthened our ranks! And his daughter-she inspires strong
feelings in me. Nevertheless, dear Mother Mary, I cannot drive from my
mind the terror that Morgeu has instilled in me with the horror that we
share. At least, Eufrasia is no supernatural being as is Nynyve. She
is wholly mortal and all the more enticingly attractive to me for that.

If only I could find the strength in my soul to overthrow my sister's
evil enchantment. Pray for me, Mother Mary. Pray that I may live
to love as a man.

King Wesc

Compact, with a limp from a boating accident in his youth, King

Wesc had not the appearance of a monarch. He dressed simply,
in red, long-sleeved wool shirts and black trousers with attached
socks. His tall boots had twin serpents styled into the kid leather,
and his jerkin, too, displayed coiled serpents. Otherwise, there
was no sign of his rank. He wore his ginger beard long and
his dark hair short, hke a farmer, and he carried no dagger or
sword, relying entirely upon his warriors to defend him.

His faith in his men was well placed, for they loved their
king not for his ferocity but for his charm and wisdom. All
knew that King Wesc was beloved of Lady, wife of the Furor.

She, who wept tears of gold that turned to amber in the sea,
bestowed wisdom, foresight, and luck upon those she loved.

And she loved Wesc for the faithfulness he had shown her since
boyhood when, youngest of his family and bereft of inheritance,
he gave himself not to rancor and the fight for land but to sacred
poetry, her own passion. Of small stature, he had little to offer
as a warrior; neither had he any skill as a vitiki, a magician, nor
as a lawspeaker, who settled disputes and questions of honor.

Ritual bored him, and he found no place among the temples.

Throughout his adolescence and into his early manhood, he
apphed his hand to nothing more than sacred poetry.

When the Saxons needed a legate to send among the Angles,

Jutes, and Picts during the early years of the Foederatus, they
chose Wesc. His eloquence, his mellifluous singing voice, and
his unimposing stature assured his happy reception within the
bickering tribes. To the surprise of all, he proved more than
a mere legate. The wisdom that Lady had instilled in him
came forth in unexpected ways, providing batde insights at
war counsels that proved decisive in winning stunning victories
time and again. His renown as a strategist who won land for
whatever assembly he served uplifted him to the status of
a leader.

Then Hengist and Horsa, the first great commanders of
the Foederatus, died in battle against the Dragon Lords of
the Britons. Wesc came to Britain to hold the land they had
won, and he succeeded by concluding trade agreements with
the magister militum of Londinium while dispatching fanatical
warrior sects to the west and north, to demonstrate the prudence
of negotiating with him and the hopelessness of fighting.

At the Roman villa of Dubrae, overlooking white hmestone
cliffs and the Belgic Strait that separated him from his homeland,
he continued to compose sacred poetry. And he kept the
company of a cat, the animal most cherished by Lady. The black
female cat that followed him everywhere remained nameless.

She was for him Lady's companionship in this world. Strolling
among the colonnades above the white cliffs, he recited her
poetry fit for the gods: 'Lady, you recall the distances — in the
cold lakes that became your eyes — without giving up their
clouds - and the black wing of the fluke - that tattered and
became your shadow — and the violence, unthinking, possessed

— that alone can win us peace.'

The Machinery of Hell

Cei wandered the sad limits of hell under smokestacks that spat
flame and a pall of black smoke. Sidelong cats shied from him,
but none others noticed his passage. Gray grass, rigid and brittle,
clumped around poles stuck upright in the ground, and strung
between the intervals of tar-slapped poles, cables stretched taudy
upon which ravens stood dark sentinel. The black city on all
sides by smoking.

Against the baleful sky, a cross crested a small church, a
building of gray pitted stone that sulked between a warehouse of
flueblack bricks and weeded barrens, where broken glass glinted
among cinders, a garden of gloom. He went there chanting
aloud supphcations to the deity that had kindled the stars in
their dark and had set this city of perdition so far from their wan
hght. With salty sorrow in his throat, he entered the vestibule,
knowing himself unworthy of benediction, yet grateful to
discover sanctuary even here among the machinery of hell.

The buckled hnoleum floor did not bend under his weight
and carried no shadow of him from the wine colors let down
by the windows of stained glass, wherein he recognized the
figures of his salvation. Sobbing his prayers, he eased himself
into the rearmost pew and knelt. 'Father, forgive me!' he cried
aloud at the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer and began reciting
it again, his tear-blurred eyes fixed upon the plaster Christ above
the altar.

A priest in rumpled black soutane staggered toward him
down the aisle, his bloodwebbed eyes tight with incredulity, a
silver flask in one hand, the other guiding him along the pews.

He muttered something in a foreign language, and Cei wiped
away his tears and asked softly, 'Father — you see me?'

The priest understood his Latin and nodded as he approached,
mumbling further in his alien tongue.

Cei stood. 'You can hear me? Y o u understand me?'

'Yes, I understand you,' the priest answered in Latin,
and his ruined eyes blinked as he reached out to touch the
apparition. But his hand felt nothing, mere air. 'Who — who
are you?'

'I am Cei, son of Kyner, seneschal to King Arthor of

Britain.'

The cleric sagged into the pew in front of Cei and sat
backward on one bent leg facing the large man in the tattered
cassock of a priest.

Cei saw the priest's incredulity and nodded. 'Oh, this is but
my disguise. Here, I have my cuirass beneath.' He pulled the
cassock over his head and revealed his black leather breastshield
embossed with the royal dragon. 'My sword — I — I lost my
sword gambling.'

The priest looked with dismay at the flask in his hand and
placed it gendy on the pew.

'Father, I have lost my way,' Cei spoke beseechingly. 'Will
you help me find my way to the world of the living?'

Blue Horses

The slow caravans of King Arthor's army moved north against
the rim of the snow-spelled world. After crushingly defeating
the Riders of the North Wind under the staring blue eye of the
blizzard, the king's army moved effectively from one northern
city to the next. Though the snows continued intermittendy,
the gale winds did not return, and the columns of foot soldiers,
wings of cavalry, and trains of wagons journeyed through a
white waste mute as the face of the moon.

True to his word, King Arthor kept Eufrasia at his side
during all strategy sessions, and she proved to be an effective
though eccentric tactician. Lot and Aidan provided accurate
assessments of terrain familiar to them made strange by giant
alabaster drifts. Marcus and Urien offered cunning military
maneuvers for aggressively engaging the enemy. And Kyner,
still quiedy grieving the loss of his son, nonetheless continued
efficiently enough to manage the integration of the varied forces
so that the army's morale remained high. But none proved as
insightful as Eufrasia in pinpointing the location and movements
of the raiders.

By heeding her counsel, the king's army frequendy flushed
out warbands from the silver forests and frozen dells. And
though she was sometimes mistaken and sent squads on empty
forays into icicle woods, her insights often protected the king
from hostile flanking maneuvers and unexpected attacks. At first,
he and the others suspected that she employed magic, but Aidan
scowled fiercely at that suspicion and Eufrasia laughed. 'I know
nothing of magic,' she confided in the king during one of their
many rides together to inspect the troops and the day's march
ahead. 'I simply know how to look for the blue horses.'

'Show me,' the king demanded.

From a windswept knoll, she pointed across the blinding
white world into the overcast .sky. 'See those hues, those
transparencies of the sky beyond? Blue horses! The Riders of
the North Wind use those as mounts. At first, that was but a
guess. Now, I am sure.'

Arthor saw nothing in the gray sky but nacreous faces
of cloud. Even so, the woman's perceptions proved accurate
enough for him to continue to heed her counsel. When her
predictions failed, she claimed that the invaders had somehow
sensed the king's attack. The other commanders looked askance
at each other whenever Arthor chose Eufrasia's counsel over
theirs, which was most of the time. Even Aidan thought the
king foohsh to heed his daughter's hunches so assiduously. 'She's
but a girl, sire,' he said. 'And she is well know for being fickle

- in all her choices, men especially. She has entertained and
encouraged many admirers. But she is not to be taken seriously.

She is but a girl.'

'She's a full year older than I,' the king pointed out. 'Am I
then but a boy, Aidan?'

Soon, word had spread throughout the army that the king
had lost his heart and his head for battle to the beautiful woman
from the north. And when Bedevere reported these rumors to
him, Arthor smiled giddily, 'It's true — this woman is warrior
enough for me to love.'

Going to Hell

The winter wind whispered through the shrine of Hela hke
voices. 'Do you hear them, daughter?' Gorlois asked, the
silver eyes in the face he had stolen from Merhn shding
nervously. 'Those are no right voices! Those are natterings
of the damned.'

Slaying the messengers of death had imbued Morgeu with
sufficient power to revive her failing father. He sat on the black
draped altar, listening with the attentiveness granted him by the

Furor and hearing a muted cacophony of voices. She moved
hurriedly about the shrine, swinging a thurible that smoked
with a redolence of hme and sage. Desperately, she strove to
purify the sacred space of the heinous deed she had committed.

The ether of the slain messengers tainted the dim air with an
oily reek. Nothing remained of their bodies or hot knife, only
death's rancid stink.

Morgeu placed the billowy thruible on the altar and stood
before the staring body of Merhn whose eyeholes revealed the
dazed soul of Gorlois. 'Father, hsten to me.' She took the gaunt
face in both of her hands. 'We are going to hell. Y o u are coming
with me. I need the soul-seeing that the Furor has given you.'

'Do you hear the rambhngs of the damned?' Gorlois asked.

'Father! If you do not heed me, you will die. Those voices
have come to carry you away. Do you hear me?'

His suddenly crisp stare told her that he did. 'I'm dying.'

'Yes. Y o u are dying.' Morgeu pulled him to his feet. 'The
messengers of death have come for you. But they cannot
have you.'

Gorlois stamped his wolfskin boots. 'I won't die again!'

'Good!' Morgeu secured the onyx buttons on his red jerkin.

'You will hve in my womb, and I will bring you into the world
as my own child. And in time you will be king of Britain. But
now — now we must find Cei.'

'Cei?' Gorlois rocked his hoary head to one side. 'Who?'

'Son of Kyner.' Morgeu led him by the hand away from
the altar and down blind steps into the lighdess depths where
she had plunged Cei. 'You must see Cei now. See him with
your strong eye.'

Gorlois peered frightfully into the blackness. 'What is this
descent, daughter? How came this here?'

'The shrine to Hela, goddess of the dead, has passageways
and chutes into her dark realm. My magic has opened one.'

She took him under one shoulder and guided him down the
rime-crusted steps. 'Now you must stare into this darkness and
find Kyner's son Cei.'

'Ah!' The Furor's trance-strength penetrated the subterra-
nean dark easily and revealed the broken wheels, the dismem-
bered dolls, the frayed nightshirts that lay strewn on the colossal
winding stairwell into death. The hving man who had fallen
through here not long before had left a glisteny path in the
air, the effluvial warmth of his life. 'I see where he has gone!

"We will find him.'

Down he hobbled, helped by his daughter, whose pale skin
glowed, suffused with hght, hke the dusty shine of mothwings.

The Other Side of the Stars

R e x Mundi reached down from the corroded and red-stained

Seat of the Slain and offered his hairy hand to the httle girl in the
tattered brown frock. She chmbed the pitted leg of the throne
laboriously, dislodging flakes of rust, and seized the proffered
hand. Pulled up onto the giant metal seat, she stood beside
the bestial man and wiped wrung strands of strawberry hair
from her sooty face. 'My name is Skuld.' She absendy swung
one scrawny leg as she stood and slapped the torn sole of her
tree-bark sandal on the scaly iron. 'Show me the monkey. I
want to see the monkey.'

Lord Monkey, come forth! We have a new fwiend for you.

R e x Mundi offered his leathery hands to the child, then
placed the little fingers against his whiskered face. She felt Lord

Monkey staring back at her and closed her eyes and saw him
frisking across the span of days left for him.

'He's so funny!' She giggled and pressed her cheek against
the savage mask of R e x Mundi. His fur-soft body smelled of
musky, indigo loam. 'Lord Monkey — you will hve many happy
days yet!'

'Only if the Furor does not skin him,' Merhn spoke aloud.

The child pulled away, alarmed. 'If he catches him! Y o u
are not supposed to sit here. He would squash you. But Lord

Monkey is small and spry and will find his way down the other
side of the stars. He will do that when you are squashed.'

Merlin! I don't like thith! Thyee theeth a tewible fate!

'Oh, yes, litde man,' the young girl agreed with a nod. 'Soon
you will be bones on the slopes. All-Father will break you.'

Oh, pleath, help uth!

'I can't help you, little man.' Skuld shrugged her bony
shoulders. 'You are where you don't belong. You will die
here.'

'You can help us climb down the other side of the stars,'

Merlin spoke, reaching out and taking the young girl's arm.

'No. You are too big. The Asa and Vana will see you.'

Atha and Vana} Who are they?

'The gods, Dagonet,' Merhn answered. 'The warrior and
fertility gods of the Storm Tree.' He gendy squeezed Skuld's
arm. 'I know how you can help us.'

'I don't want to help you.' The child pulled her arm away.

'All-Father will get mad at me.'

'He won't get mad, Skuld, because he will never know. He
will be too happy to know.' Merhn emptied the pockets of his
magical robe, filling his conical hat with the diamonds, rubies,
emeralds, and sapphires from the Dragon's hoard. 'Take these
and sprinkle them off the Raven's Bough on the far side from
where we descend.'

They will dithtwact the godth! We will ethcape untheen!

Skuld gasped. 'They are beautiful stones! The Asa and Vana
will wear them in their hair and on their clothes and always
think kindly of me.' Her smudged face shone with reflected
carats of colored hght. 'You are friendly, R e x Mundi. I want
to thank you.'

'Then, show us the way to the other side of the stars.'

Field of Miracles

Cei stared at the priest's sad face of burst capillaries and sagging
watdes, eyes burned red. 'You're drunk.'

'Yes, I am inebriated.' The priest ran a trembling hand over
his bloodburst freckles and bowed his balding, pale-red pate.

'I've tried to drown my crisis of faith.'

'No wonder you are in hell.' Cei shoved to his feet.

'Wait!' The priest stumbled out of the pew and fell in a
clumsy sprawl into the aisle.

Cei strode to the door without glancing back. ' Y o u can't
help me find my way. You've lost the way yourself

'Please, wait!' The priest came flying toward the glare of the
open door. Had he opened it himself — or the ghost? Hammers
of alcohol pounded his brain harder in the wincing light of
day. Gingerly, he picked his way down the stone steps. On
the cracked pavement, he spied the specter shambling like a
churlish bear under the cokeblown sky. 'I must speak with
you . . .'

'You're besotted.' Cei passed through the seething smoke
from a curb grating and continued across the sunless, cobbled
street.

'Where are you going?' One foot in the gutter, the priest
squinted numbly after the hulking figure — an hallucination of

King Arthur's court, perfect to the tiniest detail: scuffed boots
laced to the knees, black cord breeks, padded tunic, and leather
corselet. What is this vision saying - more than 'Stop drinking'?

Cei labored on through the strange, burning world. A wan
inkwash of pipes and tanks loomed in the murky distance against
an ashen sky. A fishing village erupted grayly in the smog. No

- not a village at all, but a tremendous yard of metal poles and
trawl lines fenced in by woven wire.

'It is a power plant,' the priest said, lapsing to his native
tongue while huffing from his strenuous jog. When he saw
the lack of comprehension, he said in Latin, 'A mill that
makes hght.'

'Makes hght?' Cei looked about at the netherworld of
industrial exhaust. 'Then why is it so dark here?'

The priest laughed and held an arm out to stop the ghost,
but his hand touched emptiness faintly cold. 'I cannot explain.'

He held his aching ribs as he caught his breath. 'How have you
come here?'

Before Cei could reply, thunder rambled overhead, and
a massive shadow glided above them — a huge, roaring bird
soaring stiff-winged above the smoldering landscape. The priest
laughed again and waved for him to follow. They walked
through yellowed clapboard warrens where watchdogs yapped
at the priest and whined and slinked away from the phantom.

Shift workers filed past on the cinder lanes, lean, haggard-faced
men in dingy clothes. None saw Cei. Many walked right
through him.

At a hillcrest among oxidized warehouses, the priest pointed
down the sky to a long field of blinking lanterns where the
stiff-winged bird alighted, skimming over the ground and
coming to rest among others hke itself — metal creatures. Cei
looked sideways for more clarity and saw the small wheels,
people disembarking. His mind reeled. They were not creatures
at all but metal ships designed to fly. 'What is this field of
miracles?'

Riding Blue Horses

Eufrasia's empty tracks in the snow led to where she stood
alone on a knoll, her voice unspoken but unhappiness clear on
her young, wind-burnished features. Arthor stood back from
her, admiring the way she filled her fawnskin breeches, her
commanding stance, arms crossed over padded gray jerkin,
white cowl pulled back so that her flaxen hair webbed the
wind. He thought her joyless look an assessment of that day's
difficult march.

Not since Nynyve, a season past, had he experienced such
lightness of heart in the presence of a woman. But Eufrasia
was wholly mortal and no part magical. His fascination with
her touched on respect and love. What he remembered of

Nynyve seemed a dream or something that had happened
in the distant past, another lifetime. With Eufrasia, the hope
of love felt entirely plausible, and he began to beheve that
indeed the Nine Queens had sent Nynyve as a gift, to heal
him from Morgeu's wound so that he could know true love
with a mortal woman. He actually believed this. And earlier, he
had even consulted with Bedevere about the proper protocol for
an entreaty of marriage. But the steward had turned his haughty
features aside as if smelling something disagreeable. 'Love has no
protocol, sire.'

'Arthor,' she called to him with ready familiarity. He kicked
through the snow to her side. 'I've overheard Urien making
snide comment to Marcus about us. He said you've become
my hem-sniffer.'

'Ah, that's empty prattle.' Arthor laughed lightly and made
mental note to speak a harsh word privately to Urien. 'I've told
you — Urien is the Idealist, Marcus the Fatalist—'

'Yes, yes. And Kyner the Optimist, Lot the C y n i c ' She kept
her face averted, dismissing his labels. 'What they say is true.'

'Not at all, Eufrasia. Urien makes a hopeful comment . . .'

'The Fatalist did not contradict him,' she said, catching his
eye with her cold stare. ' Y o u have become my hem-sniffer,

Arthor.'

He felt a thump in his chest as though his heart had stalled.

'What are you saying?'

'Why do you always take my counsel?' She frowned at him.

'I'm not always right, yet you give my advice greater weight
than you do that of your warlords. It's obvious — you're smitten
with me.'

Arthor's jaw slung sideways. 'Obvious?'

'Do you deny it?'

'Deny it?' His eyebrows jumped, then setded to a deter-
mined stare. 'Why — no, not at all. I am smitten with you. But

I — I am not ready for where my heart leads me.'

'Don't you want me?'

Abrupdy, the image of Morgeu rose starkly in his mind — as
though Nynyve had never touched him, as though no balm of
care and love had healed his soulful wound — and he shook his
head firmly. 'No. Not in the way you deserve. I am not ready
yet to take a wife.'

'So.' Her sigh clouded in the cold. 'I am fine enough for
war games but not good enough to be your wife.'

' Y o u are indeed a woman worthy to be my wife,' Arthor
spoke hurriedly. 'But I am not yet worthy to be your husband.

I must establish myself first as king.'

'You are such a boy.'

'Not much younger than you.'

She thumbed his chin disapprovingly. You're much younger
now than when you saved me from Guthlac.'

'Younger?' Arthor's brow creased, mystified. 'I — I've
learned to love since then. Y o u have no notion how difficult
it has been for me — to love. I've been betrayed . . .'

'You betray yourself, Arthor.' Eufrasia's voice cut keenly. 'I
came here to give you my hand. Y o u turned away from me at
the Spiral Casde — and righdy so, for a manly reason I respect.

I came here to repay my hfe-debt to you — and to seek love.

Now that my debt is paid, you want to ride blue horses with
me! You're such a boy. Don't you see? There are no blue horses,

Arthor. I made that up to justify my intuitions. I was so eager for
your love, I pretended to know more than I know. And you
beheved me. But now I see my games were not clever enough
to win your heart.' She stalked away and added without looking
back, 'I won't be sitting at your war table any longer.'

Mother Mary, I have lost Eufrasia! She gave herself to me — this
beautiful woman, this courageous woman . . . and I turned her away!

I believed that I was ready for her to be my wife. I believed that Nynyve had been the antidote to Morgeu's curse and that now I was ready for
love. But I am not ready! I was scared, Mother Mary. When Eufrasia
asked if I wanted her, all my hope of love shriveled in a sudden fright -
for my very soul knows that I am polluted with sin and undeserving of
love. My fear owns me. The unholy child in my sister's womb owns me.

My heart is clogged with fear —for what I have done, for what will come
of it. How dare I believe I am worthy of any woman's love after what I
have done? Yet, I can be forgiven. Isn't that what your Son taught?

That we can be forgiven even for the most heinous sins. Then, why
can I not forgive myself? The Church preaches forgiveness, but there is
no one here to bless me as your Son would bless me. I have spoken to
the bishop at Greta Bridge of the need to confess, and he urges me to
prayer. So, I am here again, kneeling before you, praying. If I make it
to Londinium, I will suggest to the Archbishop the need for the Church
to shrive souls in this life. Must I wait for your Son's second coming
to be forgiven? Will I never know a woman's love in this life?

Exorcism

With the thaw came floods. King Arthor's army had successfully
defended against the Raiders of the North Wind, but the jour-
ney south was hampered by washed-out roads, swollen rivers,
downed bridges, and impassable fields of mud and bog. The
victorious forces dispersed among the northern cities, serving
the communities no longer as warriors but as a corps of civil
engineers who helped rebuild the thoroughfares, dike the wild
streams, and prepare the mired land for the spring plantings.

Lot's impatience to find his wife grew unbearable, and he
determined to travel south with his sons to Verulamium. Arthor,
equally anguished over the loss of his stepbrother Cei, agreed
to accompany him, and he left Marcus, Urien, and Kyner in
command of the army bemired in the fenny north.

Traveling lighdy and changing horses ffequendy, Arthor's
small cadre flew quickly south and arrived in Verulamium days
later so plastered in mud that at first the city guards would not
admit them, believing they were chthonic entities evoked by

Morgeu the Fey to defend her unholy shrine. At the desecrated
chapel, they found the remnants of Morgeu's unholy arts. Lot
recognized the sigils chalked onto the walls as ciphers of the
netherworld. 'Do not enter here,' he warned and held his boys
back. 'This shrine opens upon the world below.'

Arthor remembered too well his own unhappy transit of the
hollow hills, and he heeded the chieftain's warning. The king's
bishop gathered his priests and began an intricate exsufflation.

Sulfur fires blazed upwind of the doomful shrine, each slowly
smothered underfoot by holy men chanting Scripture so that
the thick fumes penetrated the evil place and saturated every
crevice with astringent vapors. Then blessed staves dug out
the foundation, and the black stones toppled inward, interring
forever that site of pagan worship.

In the midst of this ceremony, a messenger arrived from
nearby Londinium. Word of the king's presence in Verulamium
had reached the magister militum, and Severus Syrax invited

Arthor to visit the governor's palace and review the latest
peace terms presented by King Wesc. Seeking Lot to notify
him of the message, the king found him in an adjacent willow
grove with his sons. They stood about a tented wagon that had
been hidden there, shrouded in willow bines. Twilight painted
the gray wagon a ghmmering red.

'This is Morgeu's.' Somberly, Lot recognized the Celtic
signatures of protection carved into the wheel rims and spokes.

'We've buried her in her shrine. I know it now. But there is
one here who may tell us more of her fate.' He opened the
tent flap and revealed the bed of loam. 'Keep your bishop and
priests away, sire.'

What Arthor beheld next, he would remember all the
remaining nights of his life. Lot climbed into the wagon,
thrust his blade into the loam, dug down, and extracted from
the clotted earth a human head, its severed neck bloodless, its
throat pipes pulsing, mouth snarling, spitting out crumbs of dirt.

Its eyes glared wide. 'Morgeu the Fey is in hell!' the hacked-off
head screamed before Lot exposed it to the horizontal rays of
sunlight. 'Morgeu hves in hell!' The vampyre shrieked as its face
shthered away in the scarlet hght, running waxen from its skull
in a sticky spill of melted flesh and syrups from burst eyeballs.

77m Earthly Star

Skuld led R e x Mundi down from the rusted Seat of the Slain,
across the mesa of ferric rock and scattered bones, and over
albino ridges of sand that encircled the high throne. The tall,
bestial man held the wizard's cap filled nearly to overflowing
with gems, while the child gripped the hem of his robe and
pulled him along.

Why ith that plathe called the Theat of the Thlain?

'From there All-Father can see into all worlds,' the young
girl blithely rephed, stepping lighdy through the white, ashen
sand. 'He sees beyond the hves of people and gods to the time
when all has passed away. This gives him peace to know that
all is temporary. What is victory, what is defeat when all that
lives is slain?'

'You see!' Azael shouted, taking command of R e x Mundi's
throat. 'All is futile! I've been telling you that from the first!

The Fire Lords are crazy to try to make anything of this mess.

It's going nowhere. Give up your hght. Stop burning. Accept
the dark and the cold. That is what is real. Don't fight it.'

'Shh!' Skuld held a finger to her hps. 'If any of the Asa or

Vana see you, your plan to escape won't work. Be quiet!'

'I'm just saying to my peers, be realistic,' Azael went on in
a softer but no less irate nagging tone. 'All life is doomed. The
stars will burn out. The galaxies will blear away. All that persists
is darkness and cold. Get used to it. Stop this senseless running
after light and warmth. It can't last. If we wanted hght and
warmth we should have stayed in heaven where we belong.'

Give me back our voice, Merhn demanded. I must speak
with Skuld.

'You have something more important to say, Lailoken?'

Azael pointed R e x Mundi's arm to the steep, scrabbly rock
ledge they approached and the black abyss beyond, in which
floated the azure crescent of Earth. 'This earthly star will not
long endure. That's what Skuld has been telling us. Look at

God. She's the one we followed out here. What's She doing?

Dancing with microbes! She's crazy! We should never have
followed Her in the first place.'

Dog ashes! Merlin thought with all his might, and the demon
went silent. The wizard forced his will to speak, 'Skuld, you said
you wanted to thank me for this gift from the Dragon's hoard.

You can thank me by showing me where my body is. Will you
do that?'

The child took the heavy hat of gems, and her shoulders
sagged with their weight. 'I will scatter the gems on the other
side of Raven's Branch, as we agreed.' She smiled up at R e x

Mundi's round, simian eyes. 'When I'm done, I'll drop your
hat so that it falls to where your own body is. Use the magic in
your robe to find your hat — and you will find your own flesh.

Now go.'

But how? There ith no thtairway down! And no woe to cawy
uth!

'The way down is easier than the way up — just jump!' She
turned and pushed her back against R e x Mundi, striking him
with surprising force. Into the starflung abyss, he fell, robes
snapping, arms outstretched, mouth and eyes wide with fright.

The Wizard's Hat

Cei and the priest sat on the kerb of a hilltop street overlooking
the field of miracles, where metal ships lofted and landed and
horseless wagons darted about, conveying cargo. Backs leaning
against an iron stanchion, basking in a gutterful of streetlight,
they craned their necks to stare at the lamp overhead. The priest
laboriously began to explain electricity.

'Say no more, father.' Cei shook his brutish head, con-
founded. 'I understand not at all the smithy's secrets, the mason's
trade, the carpenter's skills of my own world — what hope I can
grasp hell's machinery?'

'You're not in hell, son.' The priest smiled, bloodshot eyes
wincing with the pulsebeat of a headache, and he wished he
had brought his silver flask with him. 'This is your Britain - but
of a future time. Y o u are from my past.'

Cei mulled this over.

'How came you here?' the priest inquired, rubbing his
brow.

'Morgeu the Fey cast me into the pit.' He shuddered to
remember, and his eyes looked to the gutter and a pierced sewer
lid. 'The gatekeepers took from me the talismans Lot vouchsafed
me. For that — for that alone — I should be damned.'

'Talismans?' The priest pinched the numb flesh above his
nose. 'Gatekeepers? I don't understand.'

'The sentinels at the gates of hell, father.' Cei stared hard
at the glazed rosette of lamplight on the macadam. 'I begged
from them a way out of the pit. To urge them speak, I gave
them the talismans that Lot gave me—' His voice cracked, and
when he looked to the priest, his blue eyes brimmed with tears
and inconsolable sorrow. 'They are talismans woven from the
shorn hair of his sons — Gawain and Gareth — strong, good
lads, innocent boys who should not have to die - but for my
craven act.'

'You believe they have to die because you gave their
hair to the gatekeepers of hell?' The priest frowned with
incomprehension.

'I'm a Christian warrior,' Cei spoke through gnashed teeth.

'I know naught of magic. But I know enough not to give
hell's denizens hair of the living I've doomed those boys. I
know that.'

A shadow interrupted the amber glow of the streetlamp,
and a soft object fell with a muffled thump onto the street. Cei
picked it up and held the crumpled thing to the hght, exposing
a dark blue fabric embroidered with symbols of fine, crimson
stitchwork.

'What is it?' the priest asked, pulling himself upright.

Cei unfolded it to a wide-brimmed, conical hat. 'Why — it's

Merhn's hat!' From within the folds, a bright object rolled into
the warrior's hand — a cut diamond big as his thumb.

King Arthor in Londinium

Through Bishopsgate with Bedevere to one side, a bishop to
the other, and a small retinue of mounted archers behind him,

King Arthor rode a stallion into Londinium. Lot had advised
him not to go but to send a legate to review the terms offered
by King Wesc. But Arthor felt stung by what Euffasia had told
him weeks before. He needed to demonstrate to himself that
he was the same bold leader who had bravely saved her from

Guthlac.

Multitudes jammed the streets to see the boy-king who had
successfully repelled Wolf Warriors and the Riders of the North

Wind and who had cleared the hinterlands of storm raiders and
brigands. Bedevere drew the mounted archers forward into a
riding wedge to clear the crowds, while he vigorously,,scanned
for assassins. Instead of meeting the young monarch at the gate,
as befitted Arthor's royal status, the magister militum asserted his
local authority by awaiting his guest at the governor's palace.

The long ride to the riverside palace amazed Arthor, for
he had never before been received so boisterously without
first having had to fight savage invaders for the honor. In the
strenuous throng of cheering faces, some throwing the first
purple crocus blossoms of March, others with their children
on their shoulders, he sensed for the first time the legend of
his deeds.

Hearing the roaring horde, Severus Syrax regretted not
meeting the boy outside the city and bustling him quickly
to the palace. He decided to avoid any public glimpse of
their meeting and installed himself in the throne room with

Bors Bona and Count Platorius. The archbishop and his flock
of priests were dispatched to intercept Arthor's bishop and to
permit a less formal encounter. When the king entered, he
came accompanied only by his steward, a one-armed man with
an aristocrat's hauteur.

Count Platorius had not attended the Camelot festival and
had not seen Arthor before. Though he had heard that the
pretender to the throne was young, he gaped with open surprise
at the beardless boy who approached the governor's marble
throne. Big and long of shoulder as a farmer's son, the tall
youth had the easy, long stride of one accustomed to armor
and the sword at his side. But his milk-smooth complexion,
rose-tinged cheeks, and ingenuous amber eyes that opened
wider to take in the sights of the palace lent him the aspect
of an amazed altar boy.

'Arthor, welcome to Londinium.' The magister militum
presented his onyx thumb ring, symbol of his authority and
waited for Arthor to acknowledge it by touching it to his brow
or at least nodding.

The steward stopped Arthor from responding with a stern
glance and stepped forward to speak for his king. 'The high
king of Britain has presented himself to review the terms for
peace offered by King Wesc of the Foederatus. You will show
us to our quarters, where we will freshen ourselves from our
journey. On the morrow, you will present the foresaid terms to
us for our consideration. Also—' Bedevere moved his haughty
stare to Count Platorius and B o n Bona, 'your king has come
in person to receive your pledges.'

The Unnameable Thing of Beauty

Gorlois saw through the darkness to the vaulted heights of the
asylum for the wicked dead. The damned pressed together
against the jet bars, reaching for the rays that shone from his
eyes. Beyond them, he glimpsed hell's floor, crowded with
muttersome gangs of shadowshapes.

'Not that way, father.' Morgeu turned him by his shoulders
and pointed his strong gaze away from the tiered grottoes
and fuming crevices. He found again the glisteny trail, hke a
snail's path, through the tenebrous distances. Soon, they passed
beneath an old steel bridge, past the rich odors of a lumber-yard
and an abattoir, along the metal tracks of a switching yard. 'Do
you see him yet? We must find him soon. My sons' hves are
at stake!'

A freight train hurtled out of a tunnel and slashed through
their empty shapes, its racket shaking the tresdes and the gravel
beds but not slowing the progress of the enchantress and her
guide. Looking ahead for the shining trace that would lead to

Cei, Gorlois turned his head against the hoving blur of the
train and saw beyond their quarry, farther into time to where
a glare radiant as the sun silhouetted a city of towers and spires.

For one white instant, the very fabric of the Furor's vision
ripped apart, and Gorlois witnessed a loveliness of immaculate
void that filled him with joy. He sat down on the rail with
the soot-colored freight cars slashing through him. Then, the
indescribable moment passed. Angels spiraled in the expanding
rush of light as the glass faces of the silhouetted towers erupted
and their skeletal girders melted. A columnar upswelling of
fireclouds and clotted plasma pulled long cords of lightning
out of the ground into a burning cloud that swelled hke a
behemoth tree of fire.

'What am I seeing?' Gorlois groaned. 'Oh, daughter—'

'Steady yourself.' Morgeu pulled Gorlois to his feet. 'You
looked too far ahead, into apocalypse.'

'Apocalypse?' Gorlois reeled. 'Is it true?'

'What is true of yet to be?' With a toss of her head, Morgeu
lifted the red curls that had fallen across her small black eyes.

'I saw angels dancing in a light hotter than the sun!' Gorlois
clutched at his daughter. 'And I saw — I saw something so lovely

— for one instant, so lovely — in the white hght—'

'The Unnameable Thing of Beauty.' Morgeu placed a
comforting arm about her father's shoulders. 'I'm sorry you
had to see that.'

What? What was it that I saw?' His silver eyes brimmed.

'I don't know. The angels worship it. It comes and
goes as it will.' Morgeu strolled with Gorlois toward a
skyline of chimneys unraveling black smoke. 'I've seen it
in trance now and then. But it's elusive. Ignore it. You'll
be happier.'

Selwa

She had the physical appearance of a minor Roman deity, a
nymph who served the gods at the last station of night, for her
swarthy beauty projected aspects of forthcoming hght: her eyes,
oblique and jet, shone with dark clarity, an astute intelligence
more sly than shy; her flawless skin possessed the dusky tones
of rare spice, brown as nutmeg, glowing from within as if pure
copper shone through from underneath; her long sable curls
gleamed hke shadows of a moonless heaven; and her lithe, long
body, robed in the sheerest Ethiopian silks, moved and posed
with a benighted pagan sensuousness as though the Son's light
had never risen.

Born in Alexandria to a cousin of the magister militum, a
shipping magnate of the extensive and wealthy Syrax family,

Selwa had been educated in all the arts and sciences, rational
and esoteric, by the finest Greek tutors. Multilingual, she had
served her venerable family at numerous houses of her family's
far-flung dynasty, from Aleppo to Zaqaziq. She went wherever
her father and his brothers dispatched her and always for the
same purpose, to protect her family's holdings with her wiles,
sometimes using her beguiling beauty to glean information from
rivals, othertimes to get close enough to terminate rivalries
permanently.

Severus Syrax had sent for her to remove the chief obstacle
to his lucrative trade agreement with the Foederatus: a fiercely
idealistic boy-king, who cherished the ludicrous dream of
uniting the rustic Britons and Celts. The dither that this
child had provoked from her uncle Severus had made her
laugh, an uncommon pleasure among her usually grim and
dangerous assignments. The sight of her uncle squirming with
indignation and shrilly shouting, 'The insolence! The insolence
of that child!' had made the cold, storm-tossed sea voyage from

Bordeaux worth the misery she had endured. 'The insolence!

Behaving as if he were my king!'

Severus Syrax sent Selwa to the boy's suite to ensure that
the insolence ended once and for all. To accomplish this simple
deed, she wore a sturdy bezoar ring spring-loaded with a fine
gold needle sticky with poison. At the young king's door, she
presented herself without guile as the niece of the magister
militum, who had toured the Holy Land recendy and wished
to share her observations with the new monarch. Once past the
archers in their black leather corselets, she saw him sitting on the
terrace, dressed as brutishly as his archers but with a gold chaplet
of laurel leaves atop his brown hair, hair swept straight back and
cropped short over his ears hke a farmer. He had propped his
boots on the balustrade and with sleep-hdded gaze overlooked
the tile roofs of the river city. Large of frame, he was yet a boy,
as uncle had said.

Before she could go to him, a one-armed soldier blocked
her way. Dressed simply but immaculately in crisp blue tunic,
a short sword at his hip, he inspected her with a genial smile
on his thin hps and a hint of disdain in his arched nostrils and
flexed eyebrows. 'A bezoar ring!' With a swift, deft swipe of
his fingers, he shpped the ring from her and held it up to
his discerning eye. 'This particular bezoar stone has been
regurgitated from a camel. A legendary but alas ineffective
antidote to poison. Ah, but my lady, I assure you on my
life, there are no poisons to infect you here. Please, do come
in. The king is most eager to hear of your travels in the

Holy Land.'

Reckoning

Night shone feverishly with the luminosity of the blazing
chimneys and the sweeping rays of silver hght criss-crossing
off the field of miracles. In the salmon-orange glow of the
streedamp on the cobbled road between derehct buildings, Cei
inspected the wizard's hat. It smelled of wild thyme, a rhyme
with the pastoral world that he had lost when Morgeu delivered
him to these burning mills. 'How came Merlin's hat here?'

'I need a drink,' the priest moaned in his own language.

Cei held the large diamond to the lamplight and saw
within its facets Merhn's bareheaded visage, sharp-boned, eyes
gleaming deep in their skull sockets. And behind him — Morgeu
the Fey, her round moon face set with the black, pearl-bead
eyes of a snake. He dropped the diamond with a shout, and it
bounced off a cobble and spun toward the sewer grating.

The priest reflexively bent and scooped up the gem with
both hands. Unlike the ghost, this object had solidity. In
his palms, it felt warm, hke a bird's heat. Immediately, the
hammered pain of his headache lifted away — and the craving
went with it, the thirst for more drink, the dismantling of
his will, the fear of love, the flight of hope — all gone.

He grinned at Cei. 'I'm whole again! Merhn's magic has
healed me!'

The large warrior squatted before him, hat in hand, amazed
to behold the priest's face transfigured, the bloodwires untangled
from his eyes, the puffmess deflated from his jowls. 'What
wonder is this? I am confounded by all that has happened.'

'Cei!' Morgeu's voice shouted from the dark of the lane
beside a corrugated warehouse. 'Cei! Do not run from me or
it will go worse with you!'

'Worse?' Cei stood, vibrant with rage and confusion. 'Worse
than hell, Morgeu? Come, witch! I want my reckoning with
you!'

Onto the rent pavement, Morgeu strode — and, behind her,

Merlin, his forked beard and silver hair glowing in the slim hght
of the nightheld street. 'What is that in your hand?'

Cei flapped the wizard's hat and shook his fist. 'Come,
witch! Come along, wizard, and take back your hat.'

Morgeu ran across the street, her scarlet robes fluttering,
her frazzled red hair bouncing, and snatched the hat from his
hand. 'Where did this come from?'

'You know not?' Cei's wrathful face squeezed even tighter
with incredulity. 'From him!' He pointed at Merhn, who
leaned sideways against a lamp stanchion, looking disordered
and mad.

'You're coming with me, Cei.' Morgeu tugged at his big
arm. We're getting back the talismans of hair you gave the
messengers. Do you understand me? My sons will not die for
your fear.'

Cei trembled, fist upraised. 'I've a mind to box your ears!'

Morgeu snarled at him — and then noticed the priest with
the shining diamond in his hands. She turned from Cei and asked
the strange priest holding the Dragon's gem, 'Who are you?'

Not waiting for an answer, she reached out and lifted the
diamond from his open palms. As soon as it left his touch,
the apparitions vanished. The priest sat alone in the factory
precincts at night, old purposes forgot, a new dialect of the
heart suddenly comprehensible. By some fabulously strange
hallucination from the age of King Arthur, he felt God's grace
had returned to his life and cured him of his past, his sins. He
tried once more, and this time he stood, steady, spry, strong,
capable again of carrying the weight of the moment, of what
is, of what momentarily is.

Crows Talking

R e x Mundi fell to earth. He appeared from below as a shooting
star. He plummeted through space and plunged through time,
tumbling head over heels out of the cosmic World Tree,

Yggdrasil. The monkey in him squealed with fear. Dagonet
screamed in unison with his familiar. Merhn and Azael won-
dered if their form would be shattered and they be flung free,
one to wander again bodiless, the other to restore itself from
dog's ashes before roaming once more. And the Fire Lord, the
angel of God, he prayed, Your will be done, on earth as in heaven.

If Your will allows, deliver us to Your guides that we may find our
way to You.

God heard his prayer, and the shooting star buffeted among
the clouds and slowed as the heat of the industrial world below
filled the magical robes. Gendy, the lanky figure descended
through the smoggy sky and alighted among weeds sprouted
from cinder in a lot of nameless dross — shattered amber bottles,
spokeless wheels of black gum, rusted hulks, cast-off papers and
parchments, broken slabs of concrete.

Where have we awived? Dagonet tried to make sense of what
he saw - a smoldering skyline of tall chimneys surging flames

- and closer, tar-streaked poles stuck in the ground with
groups of wires strung between them. On the wires, crows
sat hke black notes of a fragmented musical score. What ith
thith gloomy plathe?

'Skuld has dropped us near where my body must be,' Merhn
reasoned. 'And clearly my body is not in our Britain anymore.'

Your hat - we mutht find your hat. But I don't thee it.

'Find my hat!' Merhn commanded the crows and flapped his
robe hke wings. 'Fly now and find my hat for R e x Mundi.'

The crows launched into the sky, scattering then reforming
and scattering again.

They go nowhere, Merlin. And why should they? They're cwowth!

'But we are R e x Mundi, King of the World - and the
animals will serve us — demon and angel united, man and
wizard and animal, all one.' R e x Mundi danced among the
junk and weeds, face lifted, reading the crows' patterns. 'Look

— they are writing ogham!'

Cwowth talking? How can that be?

'It's our magic, Dagonet. The magic of R e x Mundi.'

Land of Nightmares

'I saw the end of this world, daughter.' Gorlois hurried to
keep up with Morgeu. She clutched Merlin's hat with one
hand, Cei's arm with the other, and practically ran with him
past the ponderous hulks of freight cars over gravel beds and
rails shining yellow and red in the dusty lanternlight. 'I saw the

Apocalypse of John! Our world will end in fire!'

'This world perhaps, father. This world but not all worlds.'

'You know that?' Gorlois sounded skeptical. 'I saw angels!'

'The future has many worlds. In some, the warriors call
forth fire to consume the cities. The angels dance in the heat

— the hottest hght ever in the history of Earth. It reminds them
of whence they came . . .'

'This is not a field of miracles,' Cei grumbled. 'This is a
land of nightmares. Cities of apocalypse. Mills of fire and smoke.

Ugliness everywhere. And you!' He glared at Gorlois. 'You're
not Merlin. Why does she call you father? Who are you?'

'Be silent, Cei.' Morgeu's grip tightened. 'We have far—'

Morgeu stopped abrupdy, and Cei staggered backward in
a fright and collided with Gorlois. Ahead of them on the
tracks, under tresdes and armatures, awash in shadows hke
watered ink, a beastman stood in Merhn's robes, taller than
tall Cei, henna hackles fanning from a jungle countenance of
bared fangs.

'I've come for my body,' the fierce creature spoke hoarsely.

'Merlin?' Morgeu let Cei go and backed up against Gorlois.

'I will take my hat, as well — and the diamond of the Dragon's
pelf' R e x Mundi stepped forward with a panther's grace.

Morgeu's mind raced — and she dropped the diamond
to the gravel and poised her heel above it. 'I cannot stop
you, wizard. But I've magical strength enough to crush this

Dragon's gem.'

'Stop!' R e x Mundi crouched, arms outstretched. 'I need that
to work the magic that will restore me. Break it and I will surely
slay both you and Gorlois.'

'Gorlois?' Cei looked from R e x Mundi to Merlin's body.

'What evil transpires here?'

'You may have your gruesome body back, Merhn.' Morgeu
did not budge her heel, though she threw the hat to the feet of

R e x Mundi. 'But I want the threat from the messengers of death
removed from my sons. And I want my father's soul returned to
the root-blood of my womb.'

'Gawain and Gareth?' R e x Mundi straightened. 'I pose no
threat to your boys.'

'Not you.' Morgeu pushed Cei so hard he nearly collapsed.

'This oaf turned over to the messengers of death talismans
made from locks of their hair. Now my sons are doomed lest
you help.'

R e x Mundi's animal eyes flashed. 'Cei — is this true?'

'She cast me into the pit!' Cei shouted irately.

'The messengers of death . . .' R e x Mundi's savage face
flinched. 'We will have to enter the asylum of the wicked
dead.'

The wicked dead? I don't think I Hke thith, Merlin!

The King Is Lost

Despite herself, Selwa found that she liked the young king. She
had met numerous royal personages on her far-flung assignments
for her wealthy family, and all had had a sameness about them,
some imperfection of the heart, either greed, cruelty, or fear. In
talking with this boy on the terrace of the governor's palace and
sharing apastillus — a honey dumpling - with sweet veneria roots
for confection and a brew of elecampane root, she learned of his
unlikely childhood as a servant. He had acquired humility at a
young age. And he had been trained to fight and offer himself
in sacrifice for those greater than himself. Unlike those born
to the purple, who would never think to sacrifice themselves
for anyone, this youth sincerely believed he served his people

— with his hfe.

'I came here to kill you,' she confessed to him at last,
moved by his candor and his guileless charm. 'And as I have
failed in my heart to carry through with this unhappy deed, my
uncle will find other means. Assuredly, you will not leave the
palace alive.'

Alarmed, Arthor jumped to his feet. 'The magister militum
assured me safe passage!'

Bedevere discreedy signed for him to quiet his voice.

'You must depart at once,' Selwa advised. 'As soon as I
leave here and uncle learns you yet hve, escape will become
impossible.'

Arthor's jaw throbbed with indignation.

'What do you suggest, my lady?' Bedevere inquired quiedy.

'The river.' Selwa took a last sip of the elecampane brew and
rose. 'Your party is small. You can easily make your way through
the servants' quarters and storage chambers to the tidal wharf'

'Selwa—' Arthor took the kind woman's hands. 'How can

I thank you — for myself, for Britain?'

Selwa smiled wryly. 'You will forgive me, sire, if I tell you
that my reward will be departing this chilly, provincial island
forever.'

With Selwa's guidance, Arthor and his men found their way
unseen through the palace to the dank and cramped servants'

lodgings. There, suspicious eyes obliged Selwa to turn away,
and the king and his escort hurried brusquely among hung
laundry and small hearths of steaming cookpots to the vaulted
crypts that stored cheeses and grain. Mice scurried from the
hurrying feet that scrambled faster when the alarm horn blared
from somewhere in the palace. The archers pried open a grated
window that exited upon a splintery pier for lading provisions
to the palace.

Several empty cargo gigs lay moored a short run along the
pier. Arrows flew as the king and his men scrambled into two
of the boats and shoved off. Arthor stood astern, Excalibur
raised defiandy at the bowmen on the ramparts. 'Syrax is a
mad traitor!'

With his one arm, Bedevere grabbed for the king, and as he
pulled him aside, an arrow struck Arthor a glancing blow across
the brow. Into the water he plunged. Bedevere dove after him,
but in the murk swam blind. With wild eyes and watery grim-
ace, he burst to the surface and screamed, 'The king is lost!'

Stones of Fear

Excalibur and the chaplet of gold laurel leaves had fallen into the
gig when Arthor toppled overboard, as if death had divested the
youth of his royal charge. In part by this symbolic justification
and also because the bowmen on the palace ramparts continued
their volleys, Bedevere ordered the gig quickly upstream, to
hide in the rushes. Syrax's guards soon cluttered the banks, and
the king's men had no choice but to retreat under cover.

The river swallowed Arthor, and the deeper current swiftly
carried him downstream. Air caught under his leather corselet
conveyed him to the surface and bore him along with the city's
rafted trash. Among rags of viscera, gray gouts of sewage, and
stunned bits of nameless matter, he drifted. Eventually, he
washed ashore under the afternoon's watchful sun.

Voices woke him beneath wind-tilted willows, the iron taste
of blood restoring memory. The voices spoke a Saxon dialect he
understood well enough, and the very rocks that pillowed his
head seemed to vibrate with his sudden fright. Hidden by river
grass and dangling willow withes, he removed corselet and belt,
weighted them with his stones of fear and shoved them beneath
a bleached log. Then, he prayed for the voices to go away.

'Yo-ho! Look here! A wounded man!' Men in Saxon
longshirts raised him from the willow bank and laid him on
a sward full in the sun. By the cut of their breeches and crop of
their hair, he knew they were karls - farmers - and he cherished
hope yet of eluding them. 'Can you speak, lad? You're bleeding.

What's befallen you?'

Arthor mumbled a few words about a British raiding party
and warned the men to hurry to their farms and protect their
families. The karls fingered the youth's fine chemise and eyed
his well-crafted boots and surmised he was a jarl, an aristocrat
worthy of their protection. Despite his protests, they lifted him
in their strong arms and carried him up the bank to their wagon
loaded with tinder.

The clop of approaching hooves on the packed-dirt river
road inspired Arthor to twist free of the helpful karls and lope
into the ditch beside the road, intent on losing himself in the
bramble. But soon the horses arrived, and the shouting voices
informed him that they were a warband sent from the king's
camp to investigate the commotion reported from the British
governor's palace earlier that day. The karls pointed to where

Arthor had hurried into the brush, and in short order armed
men plucked him from under the bare hedges and hauled him
back to the road.

He protested that he had business elsewhere. But his voice
gave out when he looked up to see upon a sturdy battle-horse a
scar-faced man with thick shoulders and black hair braided to a
long rat's tail. 'Ah, King Arthor!' A yellowed smile missing teeth
stretched straight back like a shark's. 'Surely you remember me,
your fellow king — Gorthyn!'

With grinning satisfaction, Gorthyn dismounted and tied

Arthor's wrists with leather thongs. 'I was so much your bane
that you exiled me. But one king's bane is another's ally. King

Wesc has found worthy work for me — and will surely be pleased
with the booty I bring him this day!'

In the Land of Things Unspoken

At the jet gate that marked the entry to the asylum of the wicked
dead, R e x Mundi stood. Behind him, Morgeu, Cei, and Gorlois
in Merlin's body watched apprehensively. Easily the assembled
being could have overpowered Morgeu and wrested from her
the diamond Merhn needed to reclaim his own flesh. But the
hves of two innocents were at stake, and all, save Azael, were
united toward one goal. To protect Gawain and Gareth from
untimely death, R e x Mundi seized the jet bars in his powerful
hands and shoved the gate inward with his demonic strength.

Passively, Azael watched as the Fire Lord projected a cold
brilliance through the pores of the leathery skin, and the
misshapen shadows of the dead elongated and blew backward
as if shoved by the solar wind.

Howls hke arctic blasts scorched the air, and Lord Monkey
and Dagonet quailed. Thith ith howible! We mutht not go here!

'Stay close!' Merhn admonished the others as R e x Mundi
strode into the cavernous asylum. 'Stay close and look neither
left nor right — or you will pay with your sanity.'

Look right! Look left! Azael chanted inanely. Face the horror of the demon's life. Face the truth of horror! Look! Look!

Morgeu would not be mtimidated. Though Gorlois and

Cei kept their eyes fastened upon the broad back of R e x

Mundi, the enchantress dared to review the galleries of the
asylum illumined by the brilliance of the Fire Lord. Upon
thorn trees, flayed human skins hung, the eyes within woeful
with living torment. In a faindy smoking garden of coraline
shapes, she discerned yet more mortal countenances, human
bodies melted to bony scrag.

She could witness no more and averted her face in time to
see R e x Mundi come to a stop before a dimly hominoid figure.

Bats came and went about this charred shape that seemed almost
a hunched and naked tree in an attitude of suffering. R e x Mundi
outheld his long and hirsute hand and said not a word, for no
spoken word could match the import of silence in this land
of things unspoken. Instead of words, the Fire Lord within

R e x Mundi offered more hght. His radiance increased slowly,
inexorably, evoking color from the black environs.

Slowly, the bent figure revealed outsized pink eyes that
squinted painfully against the hght. Bent fingers splayed over a
bulbous skull, a swollen head thatched with white fur and papery
scalp of wrinkled, burned skin. Swiftly, a clawed hand slapped

R e x Mundi's open palm and deposited there two talismans of
shorn locks. Then, ricketsprung legs carried the figure away into
the mucronate dark.

As the Ught dimmed, R e x Mundi quickly turned and walked
out the way he had entered, his escort close at his heels. And this
time, Morgeu peeked neither left nor right.

Strange Beauty

Rex Mundi did not stop walking until the dark relented to
the familiar cerulean sky and speckled green landscape of

March in Britain. Ochreous dust rose distandy from a hill
path where a farmer's wagon trundled. Cranes flew over-
head beneath clouds that poured down the cold sky hke
spilled milk.

We arefwee! Fwee of hell! Fwee of the Devil! Fwee!

Morgeu knelt in the crisp grass and hugged the talismans of
her sons' hair to her breasts. Eyes filmed with tears, she handed
up the large diamond to R e x Mundi.

Cei marched over the soft earth, arms outflung, head cast
back, a great silent laugh swelling through him.

Gorlois watched R e x Mundi morosely. 'What will you
do . . .'

In mid-sentence, R e x Mundi tapped the diamond against

Gorlois's brow, and his soul fled Merhn's body and ht the
gem from within. The dispossessed body collapsed in a sense-
less heap.

'Merhn!' Azael shouted with a fearfulness that startled small
birds from the fields. 'I will not be dog ashes! I will not
release you!'

A flash of hght hot as a thunderbolt exploded through R e x

Mundi and instandy the gruesome figure disappeared in the
glare. Cei and Morgeu covered their faces, and when they
looked again, a tall man of strange beauty stood in the wizard's
robes, Lord Monkey perched on his shoulder clinging to the
man's curly red hair. With astonishment, he put his hands to
his astonished face. 'What has happened to me? Merhn?'

Merhn sat up and groggily felt through the britde grass until
his long fingers came up with the diamond softly ht from within.

He rocked to his haunches with a sleepy smile.

'Gorlois!' Morgeu shrieked. 'Where is Gorlois? Merhn!'

Cei stepped quickly to the wizard and helped him to
his feet.

'Gorlois is in the Dragon's gem.' Merhn displayed it briefly
between thumb and forefinger, then, with a roll of his wrist, it
was gone. 'I will retain him to be certain you offer no further
grief to our king. For if you do, I shall dispatch Gorlois direcdy
to the asylum for the wicked dead. Do you understand?'

Morgeu gaped mutely for a moment, then rasped, 'You
promised!'

'I returned the talismans Cei forsook.' Merhn waved

Morgeu away. 'That is all I promised. N o w be off with you,
enchantress.'

Lord Monkey chattered happily upon the stranger's shoulder.

'Ah, you hke the original form of your master.' Merhn
smiled. 'You may thank the Fire Lord for that, Dagonet.'

Dagonet reached for Merhn and took his bony hand. 'I was
a dwarf! I was stunted from childhood, from birth . . .'

'An accident of the cryptarch that shapes our fleshly forms,

Dagonet.' Merhn shook his hand amiably. 'Now you are the
handsome Armorican you always were before chance dis-
torted you.'

'And the angel — and the demon Azael?' Dagonet inquired,
wonderstruck.

'Fire Lords go where God wills. As for Azael—' The
wizard booted the grass, and a small cloud of ashes luffed on
the breeze.

A Warrior's Death Song

King Wesc received his royal prisoner in a birch grove on the
high bluffs overhanging the River Tamesis. Gorthyn tied the
leather leash of the prisoner's thongs to a leafless tree.

'Release him, Gorthyn,' King Wesc commanded. 'And
leave us.'

'Sire! This man is most dangerous.' Gorthyn glared at

Arthor. 'He is the Britons' iron hammer, trained as a warrior,
not a king.'

The compact king looked beyond Gorthyn to his personal
guard, and they stepped through the trees. Gorthyn quickly
untied Arthor's wrists, bowed, and backed into the guards,
who walked him briskly away. When they were alone, Wesc
approached Arthor and stared up into his yellow eyes. 'You
speak my language.'

Y e s . '

'That was not a question.' His eyes narrowed, and he
crossed his red-sleeved arms over his wool shirt. 'I know all
about my enemies. Y o u were reared by Kyner, trained to hve
the hfe of death. Y o u did not expect to be a king. Nor did I.

Nor did I.'

'You are a poet.' Arthor rubbed his sore wrists and recited,

'"It is an hour before winter — I have found my way here — to
the dreams of wolves — the stillness in which words give up —
their unfinished voices . . . " That is all I remember.'

'I am duly impressed, Arthor.' Wesc stroked his long ginger
beard. 'How do you know my poetry?'

'You write sacred poetry.' Arthor hesitated, then sighed to
admit, 'I've heard those hnes many times. Your berserkers sing
them as they die.'

'Yes, of course. That is a warrior's death song.' Wesc nodded
sadly. 'I myself have no love of war. Unlike my fellow kings
among the Foederatus — Cruithni of the Picts, Esc of the Jutes,

Ulfin of the Angles — I have never killed anyone. There is no
hallowed place awaiting me in the HaE of the Battle-Slain. And
you, who have slain men, are scorned for that by your God.

"Thou shalt not kill," eh, Arthor? And "he who hves by the
sword shall die by it." Your Savior is the Prince of Peace. Is
it not odd that both of us are kings who disappoint our gods?

In this, we are brothers.'

Arthor could think of no more proper reply than to state
the obvious, 'I have fought battles and killed men to defend
my land.'

'And I will take that land from you, as my gods command,
for the good of my people. Even as your faith teaches that the
meek shall inherit the earth, my faith directs that the strong must
strive and the weak be overcome. We serve opposite beliefs in
opposite ways.' Wesc laughed heartily and slapped Arthor on
the back. 'Come. Your future is pre-doomed. Soon enough,
all of Britain shall become the kingdom of the Saxons and the

Angles. My gods have shown me this, and I know that what
they have revealed is true. So, hopeless one, I will now take
you to the boat that will return you to your people.'

'Return me?' Arthor straightened with incomprehension.

W h y ? '

Wesc cocked his head as if the answer were obvious. 'There
is no better enemy for me than you, Arthor.' He laughed deeply
again. 'You're not established sufficiently for me to command
any realistic ransom. You haven't even won the pledges of your
island's largest city. My only recourse is to kill you. But I could
not bear to lose you so early in our contest. Come along now.

On the way, I will recite to you the latest of my poems.'

Songs Without Singers

King Arthor, when he came to the camp of the Britons north
of Loncknium, could have risen from the ground, he appeared
to the sentinels that abrupdy out of the vesperal mists. With
mighty cheers from the guards who found him strolling through
the evening woods where King Wesc's silent Wolf Warriors had
conveyed him, Arthor's return was announced. Bedevere, Cei,
and Merhn came running through the cooking fires, their faces
wrought with worry.

The young king allayed their fears with a broad smile and
a mighty embrace for each, as much astonished to find them
alive as they were amazed at his survival. With good cheer that
dispelled all the sorrow and recriminations that had previously
occupied the campsite, the king was escorted among the tents
to the central fire and the commanders' pavilion. A stranger
with a head of red curls stood at the map table where Lord

Monkey squatted among the scrolls. At his side stood Eufrasia,
smihng adoringly.

With the arrival of the king, Aidan and Marcus rose from
their seats and knelt. They had hurried south to coordinate
the advance of the army into Londinium, leaving Kyner in
command of the north. Lot had returned there with Morgeu
and their sons to assist.

Arthor accepted the warm greetings and fealty of those in
attendance and gazed with disbelief at Dagonet. 'You cannot
be the same man I lost at Camelot!'

'I am, sire — and I've a miraculous tale to prove it!'

The tales of the king and his party went on long into that
night. And when all was told, remarked upon and marveled at,
and all at last departed to their individual tents, Merhn alone
sat in the umber hght of the fading fire. He stared deep into
the tearings and rendings of hght. In one hand, he absendy
turned the diamond taken from the Dragon's pelf, the gem
that currently served to house the soul of Gorlois.

Briefly, he considered tossing the gem into the flames and
being done with Morgeu's incestuous child and this vengeful
soul. But, greater than the admonishment of the Nine Queens,
the memory of his mother stayed him. Saint Optima often
quoted him her favorite passage of the Bible, from Matthew

5:45: 'He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and
sends rain on the just and on the unjust.'

For now, Morgeu's evil had been stalled. Until the king's
authority was firmly acknowledged by all, he did not wish to
provoke the enchantress further. The hope that her unholy child
might yet live offered the wizard some small control over her.

Merlin pocketed the diamond, exhaled a long weary breath,
and wrapped himself more snugly in his robe against the chill
night. He missed R e x Mundi. Living so close to a Fire Lord, he
had never been cold even in the depths of winter. And for once
in his aeonial experience, a demon and an angel had worked
together, albeit only briefly and with a pitiless love.

He lifted his eyes from the dying flames to the clear night
sky. How rare the light in the dark of creation, he mulled. How rare the stars scattered in the void of heaven. For all their billions and thousands of billions, the dark — it ranges far vaster yet. How rare
the light, journeying centuries, millennia, aeons through the darkness,
untouched by aught else, alone, unseen, forever unknown, these songs
without singers.

S P R I N G :

Warriors of the

Round Table

Mother Mary, Mass has been said to celebrate the happy return of my
brother Cei and our wizard Merlin. And I kneel here before a silver
quiver of poplars, one of our Father's private chapels, to thank you
personally. Since his return, Cei behaves with ever more deference
around me, more quiet than before. In our boy days, I would have
known from his nervous silence that he withholds a secret. But having
heard the tale of his journey to hell, to a Britain of a nightmare yet to come, I am afraid for him. Merlin's and Dagonet's accounts of Rex

Mundi are fantastic enough. But what Cei reports — that bespeaks
a more painful strangeness. Perhaps the devil has haunted him with
broken dreams of our struggle. To think that our blood is spilled in
fighting for a future realm of dark mills and sour skies, that the sweetness of the land itself should be lost. . . Mother Mary, that is madness.

The Blood Pool

In a ploughed field full of early sun, Morgeu and Lot strolled
together. The king's soldiers stood small in the distance outside
a thatched farmhouse, waiting for their horses that the farmer
had tended for them overnight. Lot kicked at a clod of earth,
annoyed. 'Why were you in Verulamium, wife? Why did you
leave our estates?'

Morgeu, exhausted from her journey through the under-
world, lacked the power to enthrall her husband yet again. She
also knew that lying would be difficult, with Cei blathering
to everyone about what he had experienced in the nether
kingdom. 'I went to save the soul in my womb. Lailoken had
snatched it from me, and I reclaimed the chapel at Verulamium
for a shrine to Hela.' <

Lot, who wore a bearskin cloak over his bare shoulders,
looked aged in the great fur, his face shrunken amidst hair
flowing free and white as a cloud. 'Your rivalry with Merhn
must end.'

The enchantress clung to her husband's hide-covered arm.

'He threatens the life I carry, for he fears our child will challenge
his upstart Arthor.'

'Cei tells all that you have placed your father's soul in your
womb.' Lot's white eyebrows knitted. 'Is this so?'

'Lailoken killed my father on the plains of Londinium.'

Morgeu packed her voice with hurt sorrow. 'I want him
back.'

Lot enclosed her in his bearskin. 'What of our sons? If you
carry Gorlois back to this life, will he not challenge them?'

'Each soul has a private destiny, husband — this you know.'

From a pocket of her scarlet robes, she removed the talismans of
shorn hair. 'I faced Hela herself to save our sons. Their destinies
are safe from the life I will bring back to this world. Only Merhn
and his puppet king need fear the return of Gorlois.'

'That puppet king is our king, wife. I have given my
pledge.'

'And have I dishonored your pledge?' Morgeu pressed
herself against Lot and felt the weariness in him. 'AH I have
done is try to redeem a loss I suffered at the hands of the
demon Lailoken. Am I to be blamed for wanting my father
to live again — and for having the skill to bring him once more
to the hght?'

Lot held her close to him, glad for her strength, for the
rageful fire of her will. 'You have my blessing in all that you
do, wife. If you summoned the Furor himself to your womb,

I would yet stand by you. But there must be no more secrecy
between us. I will not again learn from Cei or any other what
transpires with you.' He stopped walking and turned her in his
arms so that his gray eyes touched her dark stare. 'There was a
vampyre at Verulamium. No such unclean creatures must come
near our sons.'

'Why do you think I did my sacred work at Hela's shrine
so far from our estates, dear husband?' She put her hands to the
sides of his face and spoke earnesdy. 'I love you and our sons
with all that I am. Y o u are a chieftain and I an enchantress. Y o u
must spill blood to preserve our hves. And I — I sometimes must
dip my hand into that blood pool to keep our lives whole.'

War Spirits

Bors Bona entered the throne room of the governor's palace
at Londinium with a proud gait, shoulders squared beneath his
pohshed bronze cuirass, bared head high. He neither bowed nor
nodded to the magister militum, who slouched upon his marble
perch with his kohl-rimmed eyes narrowed and his beringed
fingers interlocked before his black, meticulously trimmed
mustache and beard. 'Who has authorized the mobilization
of my troops?' asked Bors Bona.

'Why, I did, of course.' Severus Syrax cast a slow, sidelong
look to where Count Platorius stood almost wholly out of
sight among the silk draperies behind the throne. The count,
bedecked in a fleece riding coat trimmed with black fox, stepped
forward, the dark pouches under his eyes twitching to behold

Bors Bona's ire. 'Arthor has refused all our entreaties for peace,'

Syrax continued. 'He turns his forces west, back toward Merlin's
citadel at Camelot. I believe he intends to cross through the
lands of the Atrebates, very seriously destabilizing our dear
count's realm. Y o u saw the mindless joy that the rabble took
in receiving him to Londinium. We must prevent that from
happening to our western ally.'

'Only I may mobilize my troops, Syrax.'

'You have been my guest these many weeks, Bors, and have

I once issued complaint that your army indulged too heavily
in my storehouses of grain, my byres of livestock, my palace
wine cellars, my city's bordellos?' Severus Syrax spoke softly,
not stirring from his relaxed posture. 'You have enjoyed free
access to all the luxuries of Londinium. And now, I merely
assert my authority as the city's magister militum to defend us
from an enemy by mobilizing troops that I have fed and housed
through a harsh winter.'

'Unless you intend to ride with us into the field, you must
leave the command of my troops to me.'

The magister militum lowered his hands from his face and sat
up straight. 'I am glad that you see my authority extending to
the field — for I intend to ride out and confront this young
warmonger with our united forces. Arthor will quail once
he sees unified against him the might of Bors Bona, Count

Platorius, the magister militum, and the Foederatus.'

Bors Bona rocked back on his heels. 'The Foederatus?'

'Certainly. King Wesc has agreed to bolster our ranks with

Wolf Warriors. Think of it, Bors — this arrogant tyrant opposed
by Christian and pagan troops united under a Foederatus
banner.'

'What?' Bors Bona stepped back a pace as if struck. 'My
troops will not serve the invaders!'

'Not invaders, Bors. These are our allies now. Through
the Foederatus our island will enjoy safe trade routes again
with all the empires to the south, from Trier and Troyes to

Rome itself.'

Nodding and smiling, Count Platorius stepped forward and
broke his observant silence to add, 'This is a new era of peace,

Bors. But first we must exorcise the war spirits of the past.

Without you, those spirits will make Arthor high king of Britain,
and we will remain isolated from the rest of the world while
savage tribes harry us from all sides. Now is our chance to end
tyranny and isolation. Ride with us and surely Britain will take
its place in a modern age of trade and commerce.'

Spring at Stonehenge

Bors Bona's army, bolstered by Foederatus Wolf Warriors, the
armies of the magister militum, and Count Platorius intimidated

King Arthor. Fighting invaders suited him far better than spilling
the blood of the very people he sought to rule. When Marcus
and Kyner descended from the north with the main body of his
forces, the king sent trains of empty wagons west, misleading
his opponents into believing that he intended to take Platorius's
lands of the Atrebates by force. But as soon as the massive army
united under Severus Syrax departed Londinium and positioned
themselves in the west to confront him, he turned his army
direcdy south.

King Arthor crossed the River Tamesis at Pontes, burning
bridges and barges behind him to dissuade Syrax from following.

Then, he led his troops swiftly westward, thus circumventing a
clash between the two factions. By the first day of spring, the
equibalance of day and night, his army camped on the wide
plains of the Belgae territory in sight of the circle of bluestone
dolmens called Stonehenge.

Egrets, plovers, small birds flashed into the golden sky as

Merhn and King Arthor came striding through the bracken
and stood at the edge of the grassy ditch before the earthwork
enclosing the standing stones. 'Who built these monuments,

Merlin?' the boy marveled.

'Are you so confident of the moment that you have leisure
to contemplate the far past, sire?' Merhn stepped down the bank
to its flat bottom and looked up with an unhappy expression
on his craggy face. 'By skirting Syrax, you merely avoid the
inevitable, you realize. He will stalk us to Camelot.'

The king scampered down the slope and up the other side
of the chalk-rubble ditch, brushing past Merhn with a huffy
laugh and playfully snatching his conical hat. 'You sound hke
one of my warlords instead of my wizard.'

'You must take a stand against Syrax.' Merhn climbed the
embankment and followed the young king, who skipped over
the small pits that penetrated the earth at regular intervals.

'The longer you delay, the stronger grows his alliance with
the Foederatus. They will take the east of your kingdom — all
the lowlands.'

Arthor pushed through brittle cane grass remaining from the
prior summer and stepped into the circle of tall stones. 'I can't
bring myself to spill the blood of those under my protection.'

'Then you intend to win their fealty by strenuous argument,
sire?' Merlin trampled the canes and retrieved his hat from

Arthor's head as the king stood running his hands over the
dressed stone of spotted dolerite. 'Syrax and Platorius are
disinclined to listen. The trade profits that King Wesc promises
them speak louder than anything you could say.'

Still caressing the cold texture of the ritual rock, Arthor
rephed, 'It is Bors I hope to convince. If we can win him to
our order, Syrax and Platorius will have to capitulate.'

'I respect you for your willingness to avoid bloodshed, sire.

But I must warn you, deferred evil is nourished evil. The longer
you delay, the greater the final batde — and the more likely all
that we are striving to build will be lost.'

Mother Mary, in a hundred years, none of us living now will be here.

The houses that we live in fall apart and are gone. Forests collapse and
grow tall again. The unimaginable awaits us. And still, the priests and
the druids dare imagine for us holy heaven, hell's perdition, the drift of souls across the edge of time, joumeyingfrom lifetime to lifetime. Is any of this true? Even my faith in you, dear Mother Mary, even my faith
in you is just that — faith. What is true? What can be true among flesh and shadow? Oh, please, I beg you, blessed Mother, show me
mercy! Though I question all that I am, including our love, I know
that in a hundred years, a thousand years, the mountains will not
exhaust themselves, and people's faith in you will endure. I question
only myself and what is mine. Merlin and my commanders demand that

I attack Severus Syrax. But how dare I raise my hand against my own
people — the very ones I am swom to serve and protect? Such hypocrisy
is as wicked as Morgeu's deception of me. Am I king — or am I just
another warlord? Mercy or power, which should guide my hand?

White Arrows

At Aquae Sulis, the king's army bivouacked for several days,
relishing the baths and lading the wagons with supphes for
the long march north into the hill country and to Camelot.

The tributes that Arthor had received from the cities he had
rescued from the Riders of the North Wind during his winter
campaign had dwindled now to a single reed sheaf of white
arrows, a gift from the laird of Greta Bridge, given to him by
a Persian mirza exiled from his homeland. Each of the seven
arrows possessed a silver head, an ivory shaft, and feather-thin
platinum fletch vanes.

Merhn summoned Dagonet to the king's suite where the
arrows lay spread upon a dark table so heavily oiled that the
shafts reflected perfecdy in the black mahogany. The wizard
bid the tall man of red curls to sit in a chair upholstered with
auburn horsehair. ' Y o u have the Fire Lord's hght in your blood
and bones, Dagonet. You are as magical a being as I.'

'But nary as wise, Merhn — or as powerful,' Dagonet
responded with a ready and burdenless smile. His ethereal beauty
enthralled men as well as women: a beatific, almost supernatural
aura emanated from his eyes of icy depths, his high-boned face of
tall brow and freckled long nose, his confident chin and guileless,
soft-swollen Hps, almost hurt-looking yet inspiring absolute trust
when parted in a smile white and symmetrical as an amulet of
joy. Merhn himself had to look away, fixing upon the small beast
clinging to the mane of red curls to keep from being enraptured.

Lord Monkey leaped from Dagonet's shoulder onto the glossy
table and circled the strewn arrows. 'Since we've come free
of R e x Mundi,' the beautiful man continued, 'I've struggled
to earn my way in the king's army with skills no longer easy
to me. My tumbling and juggling lack grace — and my wit has
lost its edge.'

'You are a new man, Dagonet — with a new destiny.' The
wizard removed his long hat and exposed a hoary visage of
baneful aspect. He glared at Lord Monkey, who was fingering
one of the white arrows, and the beast cringed and leaped
with a squeal into Dagonet's lap. Though transformed to
the eyes and ears, Dagonet yet retained for the beast the
cherishable scent it recognized, and it clung fiercely to its
protector and glared at Merhn. 'Would you consider earning
your place in our army by a mission for the king — a magical
mission?'

'Me?' Dagonet's freckles stood out in russet contrast to his
suddenly pallid features. 'I think not, my lord Merlin. I still have
nightmares of our last magical mission that spanned the heights
and depths of creation.'

'Of course, Dagonet, I understand.' Merhn stroked his
wispy, forked beard. 'In time, your juggling skills will improve,
and you will hold a worthy place at court as a gleeman. I doubt,
alas, that such position will much impress Chief Aidan or his
fetching daughter Eufrasia, who finds your new pulchritude so
alluring. But what hope had you, once a dwarf, still a dwarf
in heart, of winning such a lovely hand and the tide to go
with it?'

'I'm no dwarf in heart, Merhn!' Dagonet's offended tone
inspired Lord Monkey to stand erect and scowl at the wizard.

'But I've been a dwarf all my hfe, I must yet find my new
way.' His voice softened. 'Do you think Eufrasia finds me —
attractive?'

'Anyone can see that, lad.' Merlin placed his hat back on his
long skull and stood. 'You're a handsome man now, Dagonet

— but a man of no station. A chieftain's daughter, she requires
station.'

Dagonet sighed resignedly and put a finger to Lord

Monkey's silver-whiskered chin. 'It seems, master, we are
conscripted to the king's service — for hope of love and
worthy station.'

The Bird in the Stone

For hope of love and worthy station, Dagonet agreed to do
hazardous work that none other of the king's company had
either skill or fortitude to fulfill. The wizard gave him the reed
sheaf of white arrows with instructions to ride north ahead of
the army, followed by Lord Monkey in a dray cart. By the end
of his day's travel, during the moment of the first star, he was to
let loose one arrow at that earliest lamplight of heaven. Guided
by magic, the arrow would land at the site of treasure. He was
to retrieve what wealth was found, load it upon the dray cart
with the magical arrow, and send Lord Monkey and the dray
cart back to the king.

Having suffered the fabulous tour of heaven and hell with

R e x Mundi, Dagonet had little doubt that what Merhn required
of him could be accomphshed, yet he worried about leaving

Lord Monkey to drive a one-horse dray cart a c r o s s forest paths
and uncertain roads. The wizard laughed a silent guffaw, an
eerily mute mask of merriment. 'I will affix the brails of my
heart to Lord Monkey and guide him swifdy back to me each
night by faerie paths. He shall be returned to you each morning,
refreshed and sound, I promise.'

Dagonet did as the wizard instructed. At the end of his first
day's ride north, he tied off his steed to Lord Monkey's dray
cart, fixed a white arrow to a recurved, composite bow - a
bow with the curled shape of a temple demon's hostile smile —
and aimed for the first star in the fading blue. Through woods
strewn with long shadows and spokes of scarlet sunlight, he ran,
green tunic slapping at his knees.

The magical arrow had come down upon a rock large as a
man's thigh and wedged itself in a narrow cleft. As he worked
the arrow loose, the rock split asunder in his lap and revealed
a wickerwork of ribs, wingbones, curled spine, grasping talons,
and a wedged, leprous skull. Dagonet's fingers played lighdy
over the impression of feathers that had been pressed into the
stone with the finest filamentary detail.

. This was not the treasure he had expected, yet he dragged
each of the heavy stone's two halves through the woods to
where the dray cart waited. Laboriously, he loaded the split
boulder and laid between its parts the scratched arrow that
had found the bird in the stone. Darkness held the forest by
the time Lord Monkey, grasping the reins and standing with
commanding authority upon the bench of the dray cart, drove
south through the woods.

In the morning, as Dagonet bathed himself in a cold spring
among budding withes of willow, he ached from the effort of
dragging the split boulder. Hearing the creak of the dray cart
returning, he climbed from the water with a bent stoop and
found a small parchment secured with a purple ribbon to Lord

Monkey's back. The message read: Dagonet of the Quest - The
first treasure you have found will serve the king well. The bishop of

Auxerre, who collects antediluvian vestiges for the Antipope Laurentius,
will pay handsomely for this bird that predates Noah. Do not mind the
crook in your back. Ride hard two days and fire the second white arrow
at the second star that appears on the first clear night thereafter. God's speed for love of Britain and king — M.

The Secret of Flying

Lot insisted that Morgeu remain at his side during the king's
march to Camelot. By the deepening of creases about his
already wrinkled and aged face, she recognized the strain that
her long absence had inflicted on him, and she did not press
for her independence even though she longed to return to the
wild places of the north where she could work unhindered her
magic to reclaim from Merhn the soul he had stolen from her
womb. She knew Lot needed her with him.

Without complaint, she accepted her uxorial chores, brew-
ing the tonics that kept him strong, working the subde enchant-
ments that eased his worries, and spending time with their sons,
who were quickly becoming men as they accompanied the
warlords from the campaign tents to the viewing ranges of
the king's military operations. To their father's delight, all
that Gawain and Gareth spoke of lately was strategy — how to
defend from a low-lying position, how to rout brigands from a
dell, how to best use cavalry in hilly terrain, how to kill with
bare hands.

To remind her sons of the world's other powers, she sat
with them each night by their campfire and told tales that,
though true, sounded fantastic to the boys: the white serpent
of the rocky places on the mountaintop that, when biting its
tail, encircled endless time and so could reveal all of past and
future if one knew how to ask and listen; the pale people,
renowned as the Daoine Sid, who dwelled in the hollow hills
and who waited in ambush within rooty caves or misty groves
to abduct victims to be fed to the Dragon that was the fire
within the earth; the unicorn that ran in herds over the hills
and fields of the sun . . .

When her family slept, Morgeu lay beside them. But she
did not sleep, for she knew the secret of flying. To outward
eyes^she appeared unconscious. In fact, her mind had departed
her physical body and flown with her dream-flesh into the
sky of darkest hght. The astral realm shone with a luminous
darkness. Within its gehd depths all physical and psychic space
was available. As a young woman, first learning this secret from
her mother the Celtic queen, who had herself learned it from
the druids, she had insisted on flying to the farthest reaches
of the planet, visiting Cathay, flitting through a busy, loud
market cluttered with bright colors of kumquats, mangoes,
amber-glazed ducklings, purple octopuses.

These nights in King Arthor's camp, she traveled secredy to
nearby tarns and muggy ponds, places of sinking things, where
the night vapors hung in the dank air hke powdered jade or fine
mold. Under the dark bower of swamp trees, the moon small
in the sky and granular among the branches like spilled salt, she
met with the undead. They appeared by the astral hght of dark
clarity as they had when alive — Phoenician, Persian, Cretan
and Roman figures — women and men in archaic raiment, hair
oiled and coiffed-in ringlets and elaborate tiers of foregone styles.

For centuries, they had dwelled in these low, marshy hollows,
coming to this hyperborean isle with the first Romans to escape
the necromancers of their own lands. For centuries, they had
survived on the blood of lost wanderers, occasional hunters,
foohsh treasure-seekers.

In the coppery green haze that shimmered like dust, Morgeu
gathered about her the undead, learned their names, their
stories, and then led them to where their cold hungers could
be sated.

They Move Among Us Unseen

Merlin knew at once what was happening when the king's
soldiers began to fall sick, beset with chills and no fevers,
waking from ferocious nightmares too weak to march and
unable to stomach even the sight of food. 'Vampyres,' he
informed Bedevere in the carmine hght of day's end when
the army sprawled hke a giant among the scattered glades of
the hillsides. 'We've ten days' march ahead of us before we
reach Camelot. At this rate, we'll be decimated when we
reach there.'

'I'll gather the priests and we'll set up perimeters of holy
candles and prayer vigils,' Bedevere offered.

'No.' Merhn pulled the steward closer by his one arm and
walked with him away from the king's tent. 'Arthor must not
know. He will suspect Morgeu and righdy. That is what she
wants, to alarm him and thus to bend me to her will and force
me to return Gorlois's soul.'

'She has not yet miscarried that unholy child?' Bedevere's tall
brow creased with concern. 'I know a tincture that will purge
her womb. Shall I see that it finds its way to her drink?'

Merhn flashed a piqued look and spoke as if to a child, 'She
is an enchantress, Bedevere. Don't even think to challenge her.'

The wizard pulled the steward to where the grooms brushed and
fed the cavalry's steeds, and he picked up a wooden bucket. On
the iron hoop that bound the slats, he scrawled with red chalk a
series of barbaric sigils. 'Take this bucket, fill it with tarn water,
the more black with leaf-rot the better. Then post yourself
outside the tent of the stricken. Watch the water. When you
see the vampyre reflected—' Merhn clapped the wooden top
to the bucket. 'Catch the devils this way. They move among us
unseen, because they come in astral guise, too wary to expose
their physical forms. But we will catch their souls!'

'What am I to do with the capped bucket?' asked Bedevere.

Merhn merely smiled. That night, he equipped the steward
with a dozen marked buckets, each filled with water dark with
steeped leaves. By dawn, a sleepy Bedevere had capped all of
them. The wizard hned them up in a clearing where the red
dawnlight climbed down the trees. With the sun at her back,

Morgeu came striding through the haze of the cooking fires
and shoving past the horses being saddled for the day's march.

'Do not destroy them, Lailoken.' Morgeu placed a red-
slippered foot on the first bucket that Merlin reached to
uncover. 'They came at my behest.'

'And what ire the survivors will harbor against you, Morgeu!'

A crooked smile bent his hps. 'They will come for you —
and yours.'

Her round face squeezed a frown. 'You want to destroy
me.'

'I want you to oppose our king no more.'

Morgeu gripped Merhn's robe. 'Give me back my child's
soul.'

'Never, you incestuous harlot!'

Morgeu raised her hand to strike the wizard, her small dark
eyes flashing — but checked herself with a snarl.

Merhn's smile widened to a grin of yellow, snaggled teeth.

'If you hurry, you can carry each of these buckets to a dark
place before we break camp. But do not dare thwart me again,

Morgeu, or next time I will forget I am a Christian.'

The Beauty of Horses

Spring rains sizzled through the trees when the king's army
arrived at the Rtiver Amnis and Camelot hove into view.

Much work had been achieved in the long months that the
warriors had been away, and the bartizans, spires, belvederes, and
curtain-wall towers had all been completed. Even against the
gray sky, with the black-and-green dragon pennants of the king's
ancestors and the banners in Arthor's own colors of red and
white hanging limply, the citadel offered a spectacular vista.

While the army marched through Cold Kitchen, greeted
by the trumpeting of elephants and joined by dancing bears and
the antics of wise dogs, King Arthor rode swiftly ahead. The
fortress-city stood triumphant under the stormy cloudbanks and
the deepening green of the mountains. Waterfowl flapped up
out of the grass before his gallop, egrets, herons, and cranes that
had returnfed to the River Amnis with the clement season.

On the champaign around Camelot grazed a herd of slender-
legged, sleekly muscled horses shining almost blue in the rain,
silent and fluid as running ink. Arthor slowed to a stop and
sat enraptured by the beauty of horses. He watched their
ebony hooves dancing in the morning groundmist, their long,
intelligent heads bowing and lifting, swinging to regard each
other with smirking eyes of grace. Already they were well aware
of him studying them, the wells of their nostrils sampling the
news of his arrival.

The master masons and carpenters who greeted the king
upon his entry into the slate-paved ward of the casde informed
him that the sable horses had arrived at Cold Kitchen on a
barge from Palaestina Salutaris as a gift of the dux Arabiae at

Bostra. The Christian dux had heard of the boy-king's struggle
against pagan invaders and the opposition of Severus Syrax. The
redoubtable Syrax family had long been trade rivals to the dux

Arabiae, and he was glad to do what he could to offer help to
any of their foes.

'When last we stood in this citadel, sire,' Bedevere remarked
to the king after they dismounted and strolled awestruck across
the bailey, 'your hair yet brisded like a hedgehog's and you'd
rather have worn a common tunic than a royal chemise. And
now—'

Arthor did not hear his steward, so engrossed was he by the
many towers and battlements of the outer ward - and then, the
elegant spired archway to the central court, where a tall fountain
of camehan and green tourmaline waterspouts emptied onto
interlayered basins all carven with images of dolphins, salmon,
squid, conger eels, and mermaids.

'Last we were here, sire, you told me you did not feel hke
a king in your heart.' Bedevere admired how regal Arthor
appeared with his hair grown out and his royal attire well worn
to his form. 'How does your heart feel now?'

'So much blood of our own people has spilled in the slaying
of our enemies,' Arthor answered quiedy, almost absendy,
absorbed by the graven heights of the inner ward, 'if I am
not a king, Bedevere, then I am a heinous murderer.'

Mother Mary, Camelot is beautiful. Eveningfalls on the central garden,
where I kneel before you. Bats flutter about the cloister. Shadows climb
the battlements. My sister still appears in my evil dreams, and she plays with my fate. But I feel safe here among these towers of cold stone.

She has a suite of chambers entirely to herself within Lot's wing of
the castle, and this fortress-city is so large, I could live here years and never see her. A bell rings from the chapel. Three crows scatter, and
a golden cloud dissolves. What compels me to remain kneeling among
the rose shrubs as darkness encloses all and the lantern-lighter on the
ramparts calls out the o'clock? Merlin speaks of a dark age to come. A
thousand years offorgetfulness. We in this citadel are, by God's grace,
a bright encounter before the unspeakable dark descends. But the night
that follows is not everlasting. A brighter age will ascend. And the call from within to serve that time yet to come scatters my sad dreams.

Dark Morning

Black smoke rose from the horizon in a titanic wall that blotted
the sun. 'The pagans are burning the hamlets and their oudying
fields!' Count Platorius reported to Severus Syrax.

'Not pagans - Foederatus troops.' The magister militum sat
on his red stallion where the Belgae plains rose to gaunt rills
above a river benchland. 'Our allies are destroying the farms
of our enemy, the tyrant Arthor. Why does this alarm you,

Platorius?'

The sullen count, wearing a beaverskin cap and white
leather riding jacket collared in black sable seemed better
attired for the sport of hunting than war. 'I understand the
tactic, Syrax, but I question how Bors will respond. He is
already displeased with our — allies.'

Severus Syrax grinned at the dark morning. 'I have already
taken precautions to safeguard Bors's fidelity to our cause.' He
adjusted his turbaned helmet and brushed ash from the furred
shoulderguards of his red leather cuirass. 'I had the foresight to
position him well east of us, in Calleva Atrebatum, where his
large army will be handsomely provisioned and out of the way
until we need it. Reports have already been forwarded to him
indicating that the tyrant has set fire to his own farmlands to
keep them from falling into our hands.'

, 'But surely this flagrant an act of destruction will provoke a
response from the tyrant.' Count Platorius watched a squad of

Wolf Warriors punting along the stream, the gunwales of their
boat draped with the flayed scalps of farmers and their families.

'I suspect he will send Marcus or Urien to counter us here.'

The magister militum turned in his saddle with a smug expression.

'But we won't be here. By that time, Bors will be where we are
now, and he will crush Urien, whom he hates for his pagan faith

- and if it is Marcus, then the battle will not be as bloody but it
will be as equally decisive. B o n cannot accept defeat.'

Count Platorius viewed uneasily the Wolf Warriors' booty
in the thwarts of their boat — pink peeled skulls. 'And where
will we be when Bors is firushing the conflict that we have
inspired this dark and grisly day?'

'Ah, we are bound on a bold military venture, dear count.'

Severus Syrax swept one silk-sleeved arm west. We are destined
to take Tintagel and capture the tyrant's mother, the converted
pagan queen Ygrane!'

The Guest in the Tree

Dagonet's back ached unrelentingly on his two-day ride north.

He cursed the heavy stone he had lugged through the forest and
prayed that the next treasure he located for the king would not
prove so ponderous. The second evening of his journey setded
through the forest in a misty rain. No stars shone through the
dense clouds, and he spent that night and the next three days
hunkering in a hawthorn grove, trying to keep warm and dry.-

By day, he and Lord Monkey foraged early berries, dug edible
cypress roots, and snared squirrels and rabbits. At night, they
crouched under a hawthorn bower out of the rain and close to
a twigfire whose flames fled down the wind, and they discussed
the hfe they would have for themselves when their mission
was complete and the king rewarded them for replenishing
his coffers.

On the third day, the sky cleared. Among tufts of pink
cloud, Dagonet watched for the second star to appear, a white
arrow notched to his recurved bow. The moment he spied it,
he aimed and fired. With a cold whisde, the pale arrow shot
into the sky, flashed red at the top of its arc, and plummeted
into the blue woods. He signed for Lord Monkey to wait, and
he hurried among the trees as swiftly as his sore back allowed.

Shining with reflected light from the bloated red sun among
the trees, "the white arrow stabbed the trunk of a mammoth
chestnut tree. Dagonet climbed the crevassed bark to reach the
arrow and there found a mansized hole bored open years ago by
hghtning. He peered into its thick darkness and saw nothing.

Only after he climbed in and braced his way down through
the gnarly, cauterized chute in the pith did he realize he was
not the only occupant.

With tentative and trembling fingers, he felt the smooth
roundness and pitted orbits of a skull. His small cry resounded
loud as a scream in the enclosed darkness, and he scrambled
quickly away. But as he sat on the ledge of the hole in the
cool, crepuscular dark, he realized he had to go back down.

Whatever treasure there was lay with the skeleton.

Gritting his teeth, Dagonet returned to the arboreal sepulcher.

He lowered himself until the skeleton's brisket pressed against
him, then felt blindly for jewelry but found none. With his feet,
he tapped the support beneath him and heard then the thud of
a cask. Muttering an oath, he embraced the bony remains and
tried heaving them out of the tree so that he could reach the
cask, but, at his touch, the carcass fell apart. He spent the better
part of that night rigging saddle straps from his horse and the dray
cart and crawling back down into the tree, muddling among the
scattered bones and trying to hoist the cask.

It was midnight when he finally gave up and began hacking
at the tree with his sword. The dead wood gave way more
easily than he had expected, and, groaning with the pain of
his cramped muscles, he used the saddle-strap rigging to lower
the cask to the ground. When he pried it open with his sword,
black coins of silver caught starlight on the tarnished profiles of

Emperor Trajan.

Confronting the Wizard

Morgeu's scarlet robes no longer hid her pregnancy. Yet, large
as her gravid belly had swollen, no life stirred within. No
matter the fortifying elixirs she drank, or the enlivening spells
she chanted, the unborn child floated inertly. The enchantress
took to her bed in a garret of Camelot, spending ever more time
out of her body, searching through the mysteries and secrets of
the astral realms for ways to lure her child's soul back into
her womb.

Gawain and Gareth feared for their mother. In desperation,

Lot confronted Merhn in the wizard's grotto beneath the
citadel. The chieftain had vowed to himself that, in deference
to his wife, he would strive to avoid the demon-man who had
caused her father's death, but Morgeu's increasingly remote
condition spurred him to descend the winding stone steps
guarded by gargoyles and arcane graven images.

The iron door, embossed with a giant coiled dragon, stood
open, revealing flowstones slick and fluted, whiter than snow,
some the color of fresh meat, others fiery green. Beyond,
stalactites of similar lurid colors fanged from the carinated
ceiling, many hung with globular oil lamps of blown glass that
cast aqueous reflections upon a chamber curved and layered as
a sea cave. The natural rock formations of rock scallopings,
uvular alcoves, and slag platforms served as work surfaces for the
wizard's intricate metal- and glass-shops. Esoteric machineries of
bronze pots, copper coils, and whirhng vanes stood interspersed
among alchemic retorts and alembics aswirl with yolky tinctures
and soupy distillates. A tarry reek hung in the air, pungendy
infernal, an exhalation of hell.

Merhn sat upon a malachite stump loded green with copper,
contemplating vast and obscure charts of the heavens hung from
the stone teeth of the high domed roof. His head tilted as though
hstening to the whirring machinery, percolating vats, and the
timeless dripping of subterranean leakage. He seemed oblivious
of Lot. Trepidatiously, the chieftain advanced among the ribbed
stones. 'Wizard — I would speak with you.'

'Be gone from this place, Lot.' Merhn did not even budge
his stare from the celestial charts among the hanging spires.

'You come seeking mercy for your wife, but I have none
for her.'

'You have taken the soul of my child from my wife's
womb.'

Merlin turned, slow as a snake, the bonepits of his long eyes
agleam with barbed hght. ' Your child, Lot?'

Lot stood motionless as a tall eldritch doll. 'What?'

Meriin smiled dreamily. 'Ah, she has not told you. Then,
go-'

'I will not go.' Lot advanced, eyes baleful. 'Whose child
does my wife carry? Is it yours?'

'Enough!' With an annoyed grimace, Merhn stood. 'I will
not answer for Morgeu. Be gone from here, pagan Lot. Be
gone or you will know pain without remedy. Go — and do
not ever return!'

Lot backed away, intimidated by the wizard's sudden wrath.

He tripped over a glossy step, spun about on his hands and knees,
and scampered out of the grotto. Fright unreeled through his
hmbs, and he tripped twice more on the spiral stairs, appalled
to imagine Morgeu in the arms of the gruesome wizard.

Unspoken Wishes

Preoccupied with plans for countering the internecine war
that Severus Syrax foisted upon him, King Arthor dispatched

Cei to Tintagel to oversee the transportation of the Round

Table and the Holy Graal to Camelot. Cei went reluctandy.

He still cringed with dreadful memories of his tour of hell,
and he wanted to serve his king on the field of batde, not
on diplomatic missions - especially those of magical portent.

On the journey south through Cymru and the lands of the

Dumnonii, Cei stopped at every church, chapel, and chantry
he encountered and sought the blessings of the holy residents
to protect him from what lay ahead. He feared the king's
mother, well aware of her reputation as a powerful priestess
of wicca beloved of the pale people. No matter to him that she
presendy served the Savior as an abbess of a convent devoted to
charity for the impoverished, he staunchly prepared himself to
meet the mother of the woman who had cast him into infernal
darkness.

The afternoon he arrived at Tintagel, a storm thrashed the
coast. Tintagel reared dimly against banks of green clouds and
twisted cables of lightning. Lay brothers in sack habits stabled
his horse, and nuns in gray linen gowns escorted him to a
central hall warmed by a large hearth. A score of indigents
sought shelter here from the storm, and the nuns had seated
them at a long table and provided a meal of salt fish boiled in
milk and butter.

Cei declined a private meal in a chamber of his own and,
after drying himself by the fire, ate among the destitute. To
no avail, he tried politely to decline a summons to meet with

Ygrane in her private quarters on the western terrace, hoping
to defer their meeting until the morning and the promise of less
ominous weather. But the nuns could not disobey their abbess,
and they led him by both of his brawny arms up the broad
staircase to the expansive suite that opened on the western
prospect above the sea-thrashed cliffs.

Ygrane stood before the Round Table, the Graal in her
hands. At her back, through the colonnade arches of the
terrace, wings of rain flapped. 'Cei — my son's stepbrother, I
want to welcome you as a mother. Please, do not kneel before
me. Rise, brother of Arthor. Why are you so pale? Here, hold
the Graal. Its grace will heal your troubles and answer all your
unspoken wishes.'

Cei accepted the chrome, gold-laced goblet, and at its touch,
his dread did vanish. Serenity enclosed him, and as the abbess had
promised, his unspoken wishes came clear: Ygrane's face opened
before his gaze to the soul within her - an immense field full of
wild wheat and sunlight spilling over — and he knew then he
had nothing to fear from this good woman.

The Spiral Called Eternity

Cei spent a joyful week at Tintagel abbey, working with the
lay brothers by day, helping to repair storm-damaged roof tiles,
driving the daily wagon of prepared meals to the local hamlets
to feed the sick and elderly, joking and laughing with the nuns
as they toiled together in the busy spring gardens around the
casde, and chatting easily and amiably in the evening with the
abbess about the day's work. As though he were her own son,
she visited him each night before he slept and confided in him
memories of her childhood as a peasant in the hills of Cymru
and of the faerie who visited her hke wasps of flame and of the
druids who took her from her family to teach her the occult
lore of their ancient lineage and to make her their queen.

From Ygrane, Cei heard about the spiral called eternity.

'The Celtic truths are the same as what our Savior preached,' she
told him in a voice of lullaby. 'Our people have long known of
the trinity, o€Abred, God's struggle to create the world through
evolution, Gwynedd, the triumph over evil that our Savior has
attained, and Ceugant, the radiant rays of God's love, the Holy

Spirit. Each of us is on the spiral journey to the eternity of God,
guided by the Holy Spirit. Through every form that can hold
life, under water, on earth, in air, we evolve, knowing every
severity, every hardship, evil, and suffering until we become
worthy of goodness by knowing everything. And that is why
we must endure what is painful, my son, for it is not possible
to know all without suffering all.'

Cei wept when he left Tintagel. Had he not been bound by
fealty to his king, he would have doffed his sword and his black
dragon-bossed corselet and donned a cassock to serve the abbess
and her humble, industrious nuns. But he knew that he had his
small but vital role to fulfill in the salvation of Britain, and as

Jesus, who so inspired Mother Ygrane, had given all, he would
give no less. Thus, on a luminous May morning, he and a dozen
lay brothers stood the Round Table on its side and rolled it as a
great wheel along the Roman highways of the Dumnonh.

Wrapped in lambskin, the Graal rode with Cei, strapped to
the pommel of his horse's saddle. Its propinquity intoxicated
him with a celestial joy. Each day passed through his arms hke
a lover to be cherished. At night, though the musk of his horse
had seeped into his garments and he slept with dead leaves
strewn over him, the air felt lambent and aromatic as though
he were surrounded by roses. He dreamt of Tintagel, believing
while he slept that he had never left, believing he still labored
laughing in the garden fields, still rode the dirt traces among the
hamlets delivering meals to the needy, still lay in a fragrant bed
gazing through an arched window at the promiscuous stars as

Mother Ygrane spoke intimately of the soul's journeys on the
spiral called eternity.

Fish Drinking in the River

The ivory shaft and platinum fletch feathers stood in a brook,
the golden, twiht water unfurling around it. As Dagonet
approached, hmping with the pain of his aching, bent back,
the arrow moved deeper into the narrow stream and away
from his outreached grasp. He splashed after it, and it coursed
upstream, cleaving the bright current before it. His sandaled feet
sloshing through the cold water, slipping on the mossy rocks,
he fell and thwacked his head against a rock. Stars dazzled his
vision, and through their spun Hght he spotted the arrow and
seized it.

It stuck from the back of a large fish that thrashed in his grasp,
then lay still, its mouth wagging as if drinking in the river. J am
dying! the fish spoke. I am entering a great light. Once I was a hazel tree. Now I am a fish. But my soul is still the shape of a hazel nut. I
think I will be a tree again. And you! You, Dagonet, who killed me
for what I carry in my belly — why do you trust a wizard? He loves
his magic more than you.

Y o u speak?'

The fish thrashed in the muscles of water, but Dagonet
would not let it go. You are surprised I speak — you who lived as

Rex Mundi, who climbed the Storm Tree, who walked the horizons
of time and faced Hela herself in Sleet Den, the asylum of the wicked
dead? You doubt a fish can speak?

'By what power do you speak, fish?'

By the power of the white arrow that pierces my back, Dagonet.

And by the clarity conferred on you by brother rock, who kissed
your head.

'What do you want of me?' Dagonet lay with his cheek on a
slimy rock, staring into the agate eye of the fish. 'I cannot release
you. I am on a mission for my king. Y o u are his prize.'

I ask not to be released. You have already killed me. All I ask is
that you look. Look at yourself in the water, Dagonet. Look and see
the price that you must pay for your royal mission. You are becoming
again what once you were.

Dagonet painfully pushed himself to his knees and peered
at his reflection in a standing wave of the rushing current.

Hunched over from his laborious efforts to claim for the king
the bird in the stone and the treasure in the tree, he did indeed
appear hump-backed — and his facial features seemed haggard
and less fair.

You see, Dagonet — Merlin uses the Fire Lord's magic within you.

As the angel's power is depleted to fulfill the wizard's lust for treasure to serve his king, you become more of what you were.

'What can I do? I — I must fulfill my mission.'

Must you? You are handsome and strong. Make your own way
in the world. What do you care for the boy-king or for Britain?

Dagonet held the fish to his face to reply, but the finny
creature had already died, its mineral eyes glazed over.

'This is our treasure, master,' Dagonet sullenly announced to

Lord Monkey when he returned to the dray cart and outheld the
fish by the arrow that impaled it. He cut open the fish to remove
the shaft, and a large, iridescent pearl rolled out. The monkey
chattered with surprise. As instructed, Dagonet placed the pearl
and the arrow upon the dray cart and helped Lord Monkey face
in the direction they had come. In moments, the night once
again accepted the beast-driven cart, and before Dagonet turned
to find kindling for his fish-roast, the sound of the creaking cart
and the horse hooves vanished suddenly into the chill forest.

The End of Caprice

King Arthor remained in the war counsel room after the
chieftains and commanders left. They had detailed for him
the insidious cruelties that Severus Syrax and his warlords had
inflicted upon the provinces loyal to the king: farms destroyed,
dams broken, vineyards and orchards torched. All agreed that
the king had no choice but to confront Syrax's forces before
they overran any more territory. But Arthor knew that so long as

Bors Bona backed the magister militum, the batde for dominance
of Britain would be unbearably bloody. He had asked Merhn to
devise a charm that would win Bors Bona's affections — a love
charm for a warlord.

'This matter is no easy one,' Merhn had confessed. 'Though

I have scrutinized the star houses of Bors Bona and have found
his aspects of affection sufficient to craft a charm, the manner
of delivery is essential. Whoever hands him the charm must
embody attributes alluring enough to activate his affections.

Once activated, those affections will be assigned to Britain and
to you as Britain's high king. But who can evoke such feehngs
in this batde-hardened and embittered warlord?'

'Create the charm, Merhn,' Arthor commanded. 'I will
summon the ideal messenger.'

Eufrasia found the king alone in the war room. 'I pray
you have not beckoned me to renew our awkward winter
friendship. I will tell you directly, Arthor, my heart is given
to Dagonet.'

'Your father warned me you were a mutable lass.' He
stood surrounded by map easels and tables mounted with
terrain models. 'Perhaps Dagonet holds your interest because
he is unavailable. He is away raising funds to finance our war
against the Foederatus and their British allies — Syrax, Platorius,
and Bors Bona.'

'My actions have been fickle, Arthor. Y o u saved my hfe in
the Spiral Castle, and though I have repaid that debt to .you,

I still feel great warmth for the brave young man who risked
his hfe to rescue me from a cruel death. My behavior this past
winter - I cannot excuse it. I was inebriated with war — with so
many batdes and such long traveling. The prospect of winning
the love of a king inspired me to act foolishly. Since our arrival
here in this elegant casde, I tell you honesdy I am more myself.

I was wrong to entice you, more wrong yet to call you a boy
and dismiss you.'

'Eufrasia, I did not call you here for an apology.' Arthor
opened his palm to expose a small mauve phial with a tiny scroll
encased within. He explained to her the nature and purpose of
the charm. Y o u owe me no debt and I have no^right to ask
you to risk your hfe for me again . . .'

Eufrasia plucked the charm from the king's palm. 'I will
dehver this to Bors Bona — not only for you, because you believe
in me despite the graceless way I treated you — but I do this also
to mark the end of caprice and the beginning of what I hope
will be a future — for myself and my beloved Dagonet.'

Mother Mary, I entrust my future to a woman whom I have denied,
a woman who now flaunts her new love in my face. In truth, I pray for
her happiness, for she would have none with me and my polluted soul.

But will she serve Britain — or spite me? I pray to you, watch over her.

Though she is a pagan, guide her on safe paths to Bors, whose might
we must turn to our cause.

The Maker of Snakes

They came in the night, riding by moonlight along paths white
as salt. Tintagel itself shone hke a craggy chunk of the moon
fallen to earth. Past the lay brothers who guarded the gate that
was never closed, soldiers rode into the main court and leaped
from their horses while they were still moving. They wore the
blue tunics and brown riding jackets of the magister militum's
ehte cavalry and paid no heed to the gray-frocked nuns who
met them in the ward. They shouldered past these gende
guardians and stormed up the broad and gracefully curving
marble staircase, not pausing to remove their bronze-banded
leather casques.

On the western terrace where the Round Table had once
rested, they found the abbess in her white habit kneeling in
prayer before the cabinet altar that had housed the Graal. They
said nothing as they lifted her by her arms and dragged her from
the suite.

Ygrane made no protest. She struggled to get her feet under
her and allowed herself to be run quickly down the stairs. To the
alarmed nuns who tried to block the soldiers who had seized her,
she said only, 'Return to your prayers.' And to the lay brothers
who rushed across the bailey with staves and threshing tools,
she loudly admonished, 'Put aside violence! Go and pray for
our king.'

At the horses, she made no struggle and was allowed to
ride sitting up in the musky embrace of a cavalryman. Onto
the moonpaths they rode, leaving Tintagel behind shining hke
a heap of bones. Silver wands hung in the forest. The empty
outcry of an owl heralded their swift passage, and the soughing
wind carried the chill news of rain to the north.

Severus Syrax and Count Platorius stood waiting her arrival
in a glade amber with firelight. Two score men milled among
the trees where they had camped, eager to see for themselves
the renowned queen of the Celts, mother of Morgeu the Fey
and the boy-king Arthor. They kept a respectful distance from
where stood the magister militum in his turbaned helmet and
fur-trimmed metal breastplate and the count in a beaverskin
cap and long fur cloak.

Ygrane said nothing as the cavalryman eased her to the
ground. In the firelight, her placid face seemed carved of amber
and occupied from within by the flames' resdess shadows. She
gazed without ire or anxiety at the two warlords.

The count bowed before her and crossed himself. 'Mother,
forgive us, but your son's stubbornness forces our hand.'

She made no reply, and Severus Syrax appraised her coolly,
the thin lines of his mustache curved in a smug smile. 'Do you
know why you are here?' »

Her green eyes lidded knowingly. 'I assume I have been
summoned by the Maker of Snakes.'

Obsessed with Red

Before hfe, there was sleep. Morgeu returned there between
her long astral flights and the brief time she spent awake,
tending the needs of her body. She felt desperate to find a
way to retake Gorlois's soul from Merlin. Yet all her adult
life she had been desperate for vengeance against the wizard
whose magic had doomed her father. That was wh^ she was
obsessed with red. As well as her scarlet robes, the draperies of
her tower chamber in Camelot hung scarlet. Rugs of crimsoned
fleece covered the stone floor. The bower of her bed caught the
window breeze in veils of red gauze. Even the stools, the bed
table, and writing desk gleamed with vermilion lacquer. The
color carried the power of blood, of hfe, of the eternal wound
between day and night, and it conferred on her the mortal
strength to avenge what a demon had taken from her. In her
meditations on how to thwart the demon who had thwarted
her, she often fingered her red hair and pulled it to her teeth
to gnaw on it. At those times, only her hah seemed truthful,
for it was already dead.

She lay among the tangled scarlet sheets of her bed, gnawing
a tress of her hair when Lot entered. The crease between his
storm-gray eyes warned of a grief that cleaved his brain, some
conflict that he waited until he sat at the edge of her bed to
voice. 'Merhn tells me that I am not the father of this child. Yet,

I already know you will say he lies — he is Merhn, your foe.'

Morgeu said nothing. She gnawed her hah and watched.

'I know he has stolen the soul of the child — the soul
that is your father.' Lot's mouth was not visible behind the
dense gray whiskers of his drooping mustache, and his soft,
nearly whispered words arrived as if telepathically rendered.

'I care not at all whose soul you carry back to this world.

Y o u are an enchantress. Y o u have this power to summon
souls. I accept this. But you are my wife. The flesh you use
to garment this soul must be mine woven with yours. I am

Lot, son of Lug Lamfada of the Long Arm, father by Elen of
the warriors Delbaeth, Loinnbheimionach, and Cohar, father
by Pryderi of the Golden Hair of the warrior twins Gwair and

Galobrun, and father by you of Gawain and Gareth. I will not
father a son sired by another.'

With the little strength she had left from her tedious
journeys in the ether worlds, Morgeu reached out and pressed
her thumb between her husband's eyes. In a chant voice, she
sang quiedy for him, ' Y o u are a great warrior and the father of
great warriors. Save your ire for the enemy. Save your strength
to break the enemy. Or else the houses burn and the fields run
wild. Until you, good and strong were twins, two different
brothers. But in you, they are one soul.'

When her thumb came away, Lot felt peaceful and sure of
himself. Bird chatter filtered through the red draperies among
glimpses of cloudhght. A wisp of baking bread chmbed the
morning from the cookhouse below. His wife smiled at him,
and his heart beat proudly in his chest as he rose to go,
admiring the crimson fleece underfoot, the dark grain of the
door, the fine mating of archstones on the lintel - the world
so mil of everything that he did not notice the nothing she
had given him.

Wings of Twilight

At each twilight, both at dawn and evening, motes of spectral
hght flitted among the tall grass, the hedges, and the tree
boughs, drawn to the giant wheel of the Round Table that

Cei and the lay brothers rolled toward Camelot. Cei initially
paid them little heed. To his mind they were hghtning bugs,
fireflies, or will-o'-the-wisps. Sunrise and nightfall were busy
times, preparing meals and the campsite. Not until the fifth
night did he overhear one of the lay brothers' prayers nervously
mention faeries.

'That's what those hghts are,' the lay brother informed him
when he inquired. He looked, but by then night had fallen.

In the morning, he paid more attention to the flitful shapes
so proficient at riding the breezes down from among the trees.

The size of the wheel required the men to follow the major
highway east and avoid the more direct forest routes where
low-lying boughs would block their progress; so, Cei moved
from one roadside ditch to the other, chasing the sparks that
gusted from the woods on either side. At last, a roadside peddler
chanced to clap his hat over a fiery mote. When Cei peeked,
he indeed saw a tiny being, vaguely human, with diamond-carat
halo, mica-fleck eyes, and fog-blur raiment.

Fear glinted in Cei hke a musical note spun over and over
again on his taut heartstrings. He prayed fervently during the
breakfast of barley bread and salt fish, pleading for angels to
guide and protect them.

By nightfall, with fatigue from the long day's trek weighing
heavily and fog seeping across the highway from the woods,

Cei felt his prayer had gone astray. Shadowshapes of gnomes
and trolls appeared to rear from the ditches, and the faeries
gusted in swarms down the highway hke fiery balls of swamp
gas. Cei turned to mouth encouragement to the lay brothers,
but the milky fog had enclosed them entirely. What silhouettes
he saw stood immobilized, like statuary in a foggy garden.

'Cei, son of Kyner, what a handsome and practical table
you have there.' The darkly gleaming voice came from a tall
man in yellow boots and red vest, his pixie-slanted emerald eyes
shining with an enigmatic hght. Behind him, the fog sheared
away to reveal a burning sunset among the trees to the west,
a fiery horizon streaked with purple clouds. 'Will you let me
pull the Round Table along with wings of twilight? I could
lead you to a place in the Happy Woods where the Piper plays
tirelessly and the celebration never ends. Or, if your Christian
soul prefers, I'll just stroU beside you, a faerie escort back to your
king. What say you, Cei? Will you dance merrily — or risk the
road ahead?'

Whimpering fearfully, Cei flung himself at his horse and
hurriedly began unwrapping the lambskin from the Graal. By
the time his trembhng hands revealed the chrome, gold-filigreed
goblet and he turned about, the elfen stranger had vanished. A
lay brother slouched out of the fog carrying kindling. 'Brother

Cei, lay away the Graal — please. There's no priest about to
recite the Mass, and we're all too weary for long prayer.'

The Ghosts of Lovers

The king's escort accompanied Eufrasia from Camelot through
the forests of the realm, across streams swollen by spring rains,
four clays' ride to the wooded fringe of the plain where Bors

Bona's army had encamped. They arrived after moonset in the
midst of a starblown night, and, as they had been ordered, the
escort went no farther with the chieftain's pale-haired daughter.

Eufrasia rode alone out from among the trees, fingering the small
phial that Arthor had given her and that she had loop-knotted
with a fine gold chain and hung about her neck.

Before she had departed Camelot, the hollow-cheeked
wizard had held her with his odd viper eyes in their dark wells
and said, 'There's much magic upon that phial. Your beauty
carries it. All who look upon you at night, from scouts and
sentinels to company commanders and the warlord Bors Bona
himself will see for themselves the ghosts of lovers they've lost.

Every man has lost one whom they have loved, whether that
be his mother, grandmother, sister, wife, or carnal friend. You
will be that shape for them. But beware women. They will see
you for who you are.'

She went past a ploughed field where early barleycorn stood
in uneven rows upon the rocky ground. A horseman on patrol
stood in his shadow at the sight of her. "With a tentative voice,
he hailed her, but she rode on and made no reply. Ahead,
a sulfurous hght ignited and waved. Dimly, she discerned a
bowman among the dark alcoves of the wood, his underlit face
ajar with surprise.

Campfires twinkled in the meadow beyond the turned
fields. She rode slowly, giving ample opportunity for the
watchful eyes in the tenanted dark of the forest to observe
and see what their hearts told them. A few quavery voices
called to the ghosts they saw, but most watched silendy as
she trespassed their watch slow and solemn as the specter-they
discerned her to be.

Out of the black solitude of the night, she rode into the
camp and paced upon the dancing shadows from the\ fires
toward the central pavihon tent, where Bors Bona's eagle
standard stood beneath a snapping banner with a boar's head
emblazoned upon it. Dogs shied from her, horses whinnied,
and ranks of soldiers hfted themselves from their elbows where
they lay, eyes agog.

At the pavihon tent, she dismounted. The standing guard
backed away from her, lance slipping from his fingers. Bors was
on his feet when she entered, roused by the sound of the falling
lance, hand on his sheathed sword hung from the tent pole.

In his gray wool nightshirt and stocking feet, he sat down on
his trestle cot and gazed at her, eyes white in the dark tent.

'Mother?'

Star House of the Gods

Dagonet rode four days north and, at dusk, fired a white arrow
at the fourth star that quivered in the blue heavens. 'Wish me
luck, master,' he said to Lord Monkey, who sat patiendy on the
riding board of the dray cart. Into the twilight he hobbled, his
back throbbing from days of hard riding — and the curse the
talking fish had inflicted on him. As he limped under the cold
starlight, beneath Arcturus and the Ploughman, he could not
accept that Merhn, who had hved and adventured with him as

R e x Mundi, would exploit the magic that the Fire Lord had
used to grant him stature over his prior dwarfhood. The dying
fish had said that to spite him, to cause him doubt. But he would
allow no uncertainty to taint his purpose. He would win worthy
station in the king's court and make something more of himself
than the vagabond he had been before.

The arrow was nowhere to be found. He searched through
the gloaming, growing more desperate as night fell. Darkness
encompassed him. Then, the moon rose, and the nocturnal
forest accrued silvered and dusty blue shapes. A polychrome
glint of motion caught his eye, and he saw the platinum fletch
feathers of the arrow wink in and out of sight among the wicker
of a hedgerow. He bolted after it, his cramped back muscles
punishing him.

A hare had been struck by the arrow and darted across the
moonlit terrain. Dagonet followed it doggedly, ignoring the
ache of his back, running bent over, arms outstretched. Into
a cleft in a tussock the hare slipped, pulhng the arrow shaft
after it. The bowman fell to his knees before the opening and
thrust his arm in. He felt root cables or what he thought to be
thick tendrils until he pulled one through and saw in the silky
light a root-braided cyhnder. Pulling away the woven roots,
he uncovered a tarnished bronze scroll-case, its central tube
engraved with the coils of a snake-bird, its caps winged with
sphinxes. The tangled roots twined umbihcally into the crevice,
connecting to other scroll-cases.

As the moon climbed to the cope of heaven, he withdrew a
mound of these bronze-encased parchments, over two hundred
and thirty ancient documents, a library buried in a former
century. He lugged them several at a time back through the
woods to the dray cart. After he finished and Lord Monkey's
cart trundled away with the moon in the treetops, Dagonet
collapsed exhausted.

Birds yammered all about and the sun lay as a warm
blanket atop him when he woke to find Lord Monkey nibbling
gooseberries from a wicker basket with a small note attached.

Brave Dagonet — You have unearthed the library of Hipparchus, the

Greek astronomer who drafted the blueprints for the Star House of the

Gods, a copy of which later served Ptolemy. They were carried off to

Hyperborea by Greek navigators to hide them from Roman barbarians.

I doubt I will sell these. They are a treasure worth more than money.

Go five days north now — and be wary, for you enter upon the Pictish
realms. Trust in God and keep faith with our king. — M.

Guardians of Dusk

At each twilight, Cei made certain to unsheath the Graal, stand
upon his horse to place the chalice atop the upended Round

Table, and kneel with the lay brothers in prayer. After that, the
faeries stopped intruding, but just to make certain there were no
further visitations from the pale people, he convinced a priest
from the church at Isca Dumnoniorum to accompany them to

Camelot. Dawn and dusk, he conducted the synagogal service
of scripture reading, psalm singing, and homiletic sermonizing
that, at this time in the history of the Church, comprised the

Mass: In turn, under the priest's supervision, each of the lay
brothers and Cei had the opportunity to lead the ceremony and
to serve as Christ's surrogate by administering the Eucharist.

The giant wheel rolled easily enough on the old Roman
highways with the dozen and more men of the company to
bend their backs to it. When potholes and rifts in the road
blocked their way, sturdy planks were laid down to bridge
the gaps. During the frequent rains, the men sang to keep
their spirits up, and the wheel rolled on. At streams where
the slat bridges were not sturdy enough for the Round Table,
the men gathered flat rocks and devised ripraps.

The greatest obstacle was not the ill-repaired roads, the
weather, or the terrain, but the cities. On the journey north, the

Round Table rolled through the port of Isca, where the priest
joined them, then the tree-lined boulevards of Lindinae, Aquae

Sulis with its famous baths, magisterial Corinium, where in the
autumn Cei had gambled away his horse and sword, Letocetum
with its many vintners and cellars of every blush of wine, the
equestrian town of Uxacona and its boisterous race courses, and
busy Viroconium of the ample markets. All greeted the Round

Table with jubilant celebration - for all had been terrorized by
the roving war parties of the magister militum' 's army.

In each city, the elders and council members sought to
entertain and laud the bearers of the Graal and the Round

Table. They believed that these ambassadors of the king, if
properly propitiated, would summon the royal forces: Arthor
had cleared out the brigands from the surrounding farmlands in
the prior season and each municipality wanted him to defend
them from Syrax. They knew the king's might was limited,
and each made a strenuous case for why their city was most
deserving of regal intervention.

Time and again, the Round Table had to be wheeled out
the city gates in the middle of the night to elude the supplicating
crowds who wanted to hold the king's men until he sent
defenders. In the oudying fields, cruel evidence of Syrax's
army everywhere abounded - torched orchards, trampled fields,
shattered mills.

The labor of pushing and pulling the great wheel with
hawsers proved utterly exhausting on the hilly north road that
followed the River Amnis to Cold Kitchen and Camelot. In
the evening, none had strength for more than a cursory prayer
of thanks to God. During one such meager prayer under a
fiery sky, Cei noticed that the man kneeling beside him wore
yellow boots and a red vest and smiled mischievously, green
eyes aslant. 'When the king inquires how you managed to
roll the Round Table through the countryside unmolested by
the enemy, tell him the Guardians of Dusk, the Daoine Sid,
provided protection and kept you hidden from malicious eyes.

Tell him that, for he is the son of our former queen and we
do him honor.'

Cei jumped to his feet, fell backward over the lay brother
behind him - and when he looked again, the elfen man
was gone.

i

The Magister Mihturn's Ambition

Severus Syrax provided a lavish feast for Ygrane. In his pavilion
tent on the Belgae plain, an ebony table carved with foliate
patterns stood mounded with lemons, oranges, figs. 'Imported
from my family holdings in Canaan,' the magister militum proudly
announced. 'These are the goods we could bring regularly to

Britain - and more. Silks from Cathay. Ivory from Ethiopia.

Saffron from the Indus Valley. Rare woods and the finest incense
out of Kashmh. Persian tapestries. Oils of sesame and olive from

Libya. My family has trade facilities in all these remote places,
and they are eager to do business with us. They want our
fine wool, our cattle and hunting dogs, our tin, copper, gold
and silver, our salted mackerel and our delectable oysters, our
pewter ware unrivaled in the world. With ports on every side
and the Roman roads already in place, trade will be brisk, the
profits high. Think of it, Ygrane - an island of affluence and
abundance!'

'Affluence for the Celts and the Britons, Syrax?' Ygrane
inquired skeptically, refusing to sit on the cushioned chair he
offered. 'Or are they to serve merely as another resource -
cheap labor, while our Foederatus masters reap the profits of
our abundant island?'

'There is plenty for all to share.' From a silver decanter, Syrax
poured into a crystal goblet an amber wine and offered it to the
abbess. 'An alliance with the north tribes will benefit all.'

'This is our island, Syrax, built by the toil of Celts and

Britons.' Ygrane waved away the goblet of wine. 'The north
tribes have no love of industry. They are plunderers. That is
their faith.'

'Faiths change.' The magister militum saluted her with the
goblet and sipped the wine. 'Look at yourself. Now you are a
fanatic Christian, yet in earlier years you were a pagan queen.

Let us share this island with the Foederatus and in a generation
they will have acquired a taste for linen over animal hide.

Trust me.'

'I do not trust you, Syrax. If you yourself believed what
you say, you would have given pledge to Arthor as your king
and persuaded him of the merit of trade. But you and I well
know that your alliance with the Foederatus requires rulership
of Britain to pass to them - not a British nor a Celtic king.'

'What does it matter who wears the crown?' Syrax asked
with a dismissive wave of his hand. 'Wesc or Arthor, what
difference really? It is trade that is important. Commerce is the
lifeblood of the nation. If we do not share this island with the

Foederatus, they will take it whole from us. Let Wesc be king.

For Arthor there will be other titles, any of them he wishes —
and all profitable.'

Levels of Dream

Eufrasia approached Bors Bona in the dark of his tent, Merhn's
charm outheld in her hand. He sat on the edge of his cot, arms
dangling between his legs, integral with the darkness but for the
whites of his staring eyes. 'Mother — is this really you?'

The tent interior flared brighdy as the flap behind Eufrasia
lifted and the matron of the army's tailors burst in, a broad blade
flashing with the camp's firelight. She seized Eufrasia by a hank
of hair and twisted her to the ground, blade thrust to her throat.

But before the knife could bite, Bors seized the matron's beefy
arm and yanked her aside.

'What are you doing?' he shouted. Immediately, guards
rushed in with lanterns and fell back against the canvas walls,
each amazed to see the ghost of their lost love sprawled
before them.

The matron broke the gold chain from about Eufrasia's
throat and thrust the mauve phial into the lantern light. 'A
heathen charm on a pagan wench! I saw her ensorcel her
way to your tent, lord. I saw the guards agog. It is witchcraft!

I saw it!'

Bors glowered in astonishment at the beautiful pagan woman
lying before him and felt as though he were still asleep and
drifting between levels of dream. 'Who sent you?'

'The king's wizard - Merhn.' She stood and passed an angry
look to the matron, who glared back at her. 'I am Eufrasia,
daughter of Aidan, who is chief under Lot of the North Isles.'

'Of what evil did you hope to possess our lord?' one of the
guards growled, angry to see the ghost he loved gone.

'No evil at all!' She raised her chin indignantly. 'That charm
will win your lord's affection for our king — Arthor.'

Taking a lantern from one of the guards, Bors dismissed the
onlookers. 'Destroy that charm and leave us undisturbed.' He
hung the lantern beside his sword on a hook of the tent pole and
motioned wearily for the young woman to sit on the cushioned
bench opposite his cot. 'Merlin is not so wise as I had once
thought.'

'Wise enough to deliver me unseen past all your army,'

Euffasia said defiandy from where she remained standing.

'Oh, his magic is beyond my ken, I'll grant you that.' Bors
wrapped himself in a brown mande and sat on his cot, running
his blunt fingers through his gray, brush-cut hair, still amazed
and wondering if he were truly awake. 'But to think, he
beheves he needs magic to win my affection for the king!

That diminishes my opinion of him.'

Eufrasia sat on the edge of the cushioned bench. 'You have
affection for the king?'

'As I did for his father, Uther Pendragon.'

'But why — why are you serving the enemy?'

'Syrax lured me to Londinium with the threat of his alliance
to the Foederatus. I intended to dissuade him of that. But he
used magic — Merhn himself — to entrance me. I don't know
how he did that, how he won the wizard to the Foederatus
cause. But he did. Or he seemed to. And when I came to my
senses, my army was in the enemy's control. If I had openly
defied the magister militum then, I would be dead now and
my realm in the Parisi lands destroyed by the Picts. The north
tribes restrained their destruction of my lands only because of
my alliance with their masters. But now you tell me that the
wizard who baffled me in Londinium strives to win my loyalty
to a king I already admire!'

'Why did you not give your pledge to Arthor at Camelot?'

Bors shrugged. 'He was untried. A boy. But I'll tell you this

— he won my loyalty by his victories against the invaders across
the land.' He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. 'Now,
if I can be certain I am not dreaming, we will decide what we
must do to save our king.'

The Making of Warriors

After Cei arrived at Camelot with the Graal and the Round

Table, regal ceremonies and Christian rituals greeted him. He
retreated to his quarters to sleep for a day and a night while the
festivities accelerated to an almost- carnival delirium. At their
peak, when the elephant parades and Bacchanalian flower dances
spilled from the bailey out of the fortress-city and onto the
fields, Arthor called a halt to them. He painfully remembered
his drunken carousing of the previous summer and understood
far better now the grim responsibilities of his regal station.

With his brother and seneschal, Cei, seated to his left,
and his aide Bedevere to his right, King Arthor called to
order his first meeting of the Warriors of the Round Table.

Discussions, arguments, and strategies ranged for a full day
and well into the night about the best course of action to
take against the magister militum'% army arrayed to the south
and the east and Bors Bona poised in the north. News of

Ygrane's capture had reached Arthor days before, and that
fact, as well as the widespread destruction that Syrax had
wreaked upon the royal provinces, hampered any hope of a
peaceful settlement.

Arthor1 did not sleep that night. At dawn, he left the casde
on foot and waved away his entourage so that he could stroll
alone on the flower-strewn bluffs above the Amnis. Below him,
the thick dark current ran, impersonal as timeflow itself, talking
up from its depths in ceaseless and myriad murmurs the voices
of history, profoundly impermanent, swirling along the yellow
surface for an instant before fading back into the lazy alertness
of the moment.

Laughter distracted the king from his brooding, and he spied

Gawain and Gareth frolicking on the river banks, dueling with
swords improvised from river canes. He observed the making
of warriors intendy, noting their already accomplished stances,
feints, and parries. They eyed him a moment later and silendy
fell to their knees. Compelled by the recollection of his own
youth when he and Cei had similarly mock-dueled, he strode
down the bank to the boys and hailed them, 'Nephews, ris^
and stay your weapons.'

He removed his chaplet and placed it upon the head of the
youngest. 'It's heavier than it feels, Gareth.' To the eldest, he
handed Excahbur drawn from its sheath. 'And this, Gawain, is
sharper than you know, so mind where you swing it.'

'Will you take us with you to war, Uncle?' Gawain asked,
lopping off the tufted head of a river weed.

'There may not be a war. Not if I can negotiate peace.'

Gawain and Gareth shared a perplexed look. 'Peace?' the
eldest asked, expression startled. 'With the men who abducted
grandmother? The men who burned the fruit trees and vine-
yards?'

'These men are under my protection too.' Arthor sat down
on a rock shelf and tossed into the river a pebble that skipped
thrice before plunking out of sight. 'How can I kill those I
protect?'

Gareth placed the chaplet back on Arthor's head. 'Because
you are king — and the king serves God first.'

'God—?' The word pierced him. For a long minute, he
was stunned into a shameful silence. 'Mary, mother of Christ,

I've been so concerned about doing right — I'd forgotten
about God.'

Mother Mary, today a child has led me, even as Isaiah portends. How
can I hope to serve Britain if I do not first serve God? And has not our

Father put Excalibur into my hand that I may protect our island from
all her enemies? What before was uncertain is now suddenly clear. My
disquietude over slaying the people I must protect is allayed, for now

God shall strike through me those who oppose His righteous kingdom.

My arm shall be strong, my hand steady. I only pray that my hesitancy
has not jeopardized the faith of those who follow me — for fear knows
no friend.

To the Edge of the World

Dagonet had ridden so far north by the time he loosed his fifth
arrow that the world had changed. He rode through high vast
country of fir and dark spruce, where cranes flew above lines
of lakes and heather shimmered hke blue fur on the slopes. The
wind in the high forests sang down from heaven with resinous
scents, carrying silver storms across long horizons, and at night
blustered green auroras through the black of space. Rain fell
slantwise coming from over the curve of the Earth, sometimes
from clouds he never saw. A faerie dust of snow sprinkled the
higher rock ledges and the purple gorse, and cold gray mist
swirled in the rocky gorges. Under a mauve-brown sunset, he
fired his white arrow, and it flew in a red arc as if to the edge
of the world.

Lord Monkey waited in his dray cart under a rack of twilight
clouds troweled orange while Dagonet climbed down the shale
shelves, across small, pebbly creeks and stone pools. The arrow
had struck a large, black wolf between the shoulder blades, and
it fled from him across the sunset land toward a serrate horizon.

There, the wind sucked fire from the sky. He ran doubled over,
with a back pain so severe he felt permanendy warped by his past
efforts. He had drafted Merhn a letter, inquiring if the talking
fish spoke the truth, that he was becoming again a dwarf through
the gradual loss of the Fire Lord's magic. When he found this
night's treasure, he would send the letter along with it.

For the moment, he cared not how Merhn replied. He
was the king's man and noble station was not won lightly. He
scrambled over the gray stones and heather slopes with all his
might. The wolf loped on, the arrow wagging from its back.

It vanished among a clutter of tall, frost-veined rocks. As in a
maze, he wandered between the monoliths until he found the
white arrow. It had fallen from the wolfs hack and lay upon the
flint-littered ground. When he looked up, he nearly sat down
with surprise. The arrow pointed to a statue graven from a rock
his own height. \

Through the long twilight, Dagonet returned to Lord

Monkey and guided the dray cart over the gorse slopes and
rocky terrain to the rough-hewn statue. Its primitive shape
seemed no treasure to him — a stocky woman with a swollen
belly and pendulous breasts. Her simple face bore only the
vaguest semblance of features. Her quiet eyes and a dim smile
weathered to shadows in the rock by millennia of erosive wind
and rain gave off stillness in the red air.

The effort to dig the statue loose from the rocky grasp of
the earth and then lower it onto the dray cart cost him all
his strength. The cart groaned as if about to spht asunder, and

Lord Monkey shrieked and set the horse going before Dagonet's
bruised hands could extract the parchment letter he had drafted
for Merhn.

Night in the north was short. Lightning from a clear sky ht
the sky pools where he had crawled to sleep upon the moss
ledges. Raindrops whispered in the clear water briefly and woke
him to a dawn bright as a huge orchid in the south. The dray
cart had returned, and Lord Monkey sat placidly on the riding
board eating from a sack of cherries. No note accompanied the
cart. No note of gratitude or direction from the wizard. Two
white arrows remained, and the way north opened onto taiga,
a treeless distance wide as the Earth.

Immortal Silver

Ygrane rode between Severus Syrax and Count Platorius as
their army advanced across the Belgae lands and into Cymru.

The destruction of hamlets, the burning of forests, the slaughter
of herds and their drovers appalled her. 'How can you murder
your own people, lay waste to your own lands and yet hope
to rule this island?' she queried angrily when they brought her
to their command tent the evening before the march toward

Camelot.

'Abbess, your priorities are skewed,' Severus Syrax assured
her. 'We are not destroying for the sake of rule. I care not who
rules this dismal island. We are destroying to break the rule of
your tyrant son so that we may take what has always been the
true prize of war — wealth.'

Ygrane stood with her arms open in appeal before the
elegant magister militum and the dark-eyed count, who both
sat on ornate, lacquered chairs. 'Do you truly beheve silver
will sate your souls? Immortal silver should be your prize.

Seek the welfare of the people and wealth beyond measure
will be yours. The love of the people is the favor of God.

Count Platorius — you are a Christian nobleman of venerable
hneage, surely you do not condone this brutal campaign that
lays waste our lands?'

The count tugged at his earlobe. 'For all my venerable
hneage, never has the favor of God been negotiable for goods.

You yourself, my dear abbess, agreed that you were summoned
to our presence by the Maker of Snakes. God who fashions birds
assigns the snake to stalk their nests. This is the argument of our
general, and I certainly beheve he speaks the truth.'

Severus Syrax clapped his hands, and into the lamp-lit tent
strode a scar-faced man with thick shoulders and black hair
pulled back and braided to a long rat's tail. ' " I the Lord create
good and I create evil." Isaiah forty-five, seven.'

'Our field commander, King Gorthyn Belgae,' the magister
militum introduced. 'King Wesc accepted him into the Foederatus
after your son exiled him from Britain.'

Y o u destroy your own realm?' Ygrane asked, outraged.

Gorthyn snarled at her indignant tone and struck out with his
fist. His blow smote her in the face and sent her flying backward
in a flurry of robes and a spray of blood.

Count Platorius leaped to his feet, while Severus Syrax
snickered from behind his beringed fingers. 'My God, Gorthyn

— you may have killed her! No ransom in a corpse!'

'And no ransom from a corpse,' Gorthyn growled. 'We
march on Camelot tomorrow. We have blocked all roads to
the south. Bors Bona holds the north and east. There will be
no escape for the tyrant or his people. And there will be no
prisoners.'

Ether Worlds

In her trance wanderings outside her physical body, Morgeu the

Fey peered upon the hilly landscape of Cymru. From the ether
worlds, she saw the arterial tributaries of the Amnis and her sister
rivers shining like spilled quicksilver. The forests shimmered in
silks of thermal colors, a geography of feverish hues. Shadows
breathed. The moon in the day sky gleamed hke a cool lake.

And the sun in its savage feathers danced.

Since arriving in Camelot, the enchantress had searched the
ether worlds for the magic she needed to take back from Merhn
the soul he had stolen from her womb. She had come full term
corporeally and the birth of her child was already late by several
weeks. Yet she well knew that, if she gave birth without first
securing the child's soul, she would deliver a stillborn.

Enraged and bitterly frustrated by Merhn's power over
her, she soared drunkenly through the ether worlds. The
blue sky appeared hke blocks of ice, transparent blue auras
lumped together randomly and rayed with tracks of trapped air

— pathways that led to the afterlife. She did not want to go there.

Nor did she wish to rise above the sky into the eternal night
where stars flared hke silver hollyhocks. She wanted vengeance
in this world.

All that mattered to Merlin was his precious hope of a united
kingdom, and she searched for a spiteful way to thwart that. She
saw the armies below, among the billowy vapors of heat swirling
through the forests. Their banners were recognizable to her: the
blue pennants of Londinium that her father had died defending

— they ranged among the hills south of the handsome spires of

Camelot. To the east, she saw the numerous boar's-head banners
of the mighty warlord of the Parisi, Bors Bona.

Trained by her father in military strategy, Morgeu noted
from her ethereal eyrie that Bors Bona's army had abandoned
its offensive positions against Camelot and had shifted south,
moving threateningly against the magister militum's forces. In

\
her pique, she determined that Arthor would not have the
help of this warlord's superior army. Merhn and his puppet
king would taste defeat, even if that meant risking the hfe of
her own husband.

Into clouds that flourished like opulent blossoms above Bors

Bona's army, she fixed her attention. Her voice cried out to the

Furor, 'Storm-maker, hear me! Let me be your eyes. See the
enemy of your ambitions as I see them. Bors Bona moves to
attack the forces gathered against the demon Lailoken. Strike
now! Gather your might, Father of the North Tribes, and release
your power!'

Acres of cloud the color of pearls swelled, gathering heat
from the sun-warmed earth. Energy suddenly convulsed. Light-
ning flared with bhnding intensity, and Morgeu rocked with the
force of it. 'Wake up! Y o u are dreaming!'

Morgeu snapped alert, once again inside her physical body,
lying among the scarlet satins of the bed in her red room atop
a tower of Camelot. Lot sat beside her, straps of batde leather
across his naked shoulders, a shield braced against his back. 'I
must go to war to fight for your brother,' he said and stroked
the sweaty hair from her gleaming brow. 'No more fitful dreams
until I return.' He placed a hand on her swollen belly. 'Fear not.

Even Merlin's hard heart will soften after our victory.'

The Heart of Fire

'I will lead the attack against Syrax,' King Arthor determined.

He sat at the Round Table flanked by Cei and Bedevere. Facing
across the varnished expanse of the table and the Graal at the
center were his warriors, Marcus, Urien, Kyner, and Lot. 'After
the archery assault, I will bring our cavalry to bear against the
magister militum. If God favors me, I will take his head.'

'She, I must object,' Kyner spoke first even as the others
moved to voice their concerns. Y o u r place is at the command
station outside Cold Kitchen.'

'If this were a batde against invaders, I would agree,' the
king replied wearily. 'But we will be fighting Britons. They
must see that they are opposing their king — and it is the king's
wrath that they have provoked by their brutal destruction of
our farmlands.'

'Your banner will announce your presence,' Marcus spoke.

'All who see the R e d Eagle will know they are fighting you.'

'The R e d Eagle is the king's fire,' Urien added.

'But I am the heart of fire.' Arthor spoke adamantly. 'It is
my heart that suffers for the many hundreds of people under my
protection who were betrayed by Syrax and his cohorts. Those
traitors must die. And if Britons must die against the king, then
they will die under Excalibur. I will have it no other way.'

'You put yourself at great risk, sire,' said Cei, both of his
fists on the table. 'And that will weaken us. Don't you see? To
protect you will distract us from our battle assignments.'

'No one is to protect me.' The king moved his stare slowly
around the table. 'Understand that. No one is to protect me. In
this battle, I am one of you, a warrior among warriors.'

'And if you fall?' Bedevere inquired. 'If you are killed?

Our kingdom will never be united. Britain will revert to the
batdefield of warlords that it was before you drew Excalibur.

Is that wise, sire?'

'No, this is not wise what I do.' Arthor spoke solemnly.

'Philosophers are wise. Counselors are wise. But kings have only
one duty. To be strong. We are for our people God's strength.

A child reminded me of that — your child, Lot. Gareth. He made
me remember that the king serves God. Not wisdom, which is
more noble than kings. Not truth, which wears a different face
for every king. But God. His sanctity anoints us in blood. As

His servant, I serve at His whim. There is no truer form of
validation for a king than war and victory by his own hand. If I
fail, all of history henceforth is changed — and that is God's will.

And if I succeed, my authority remains absolute and irrevocable
by God's strength.'

At these words, Lot, who had remained silent, forgot his
disgruntlement at the king and the king's wizard for thwarting
his wife, and rose to his feet, chanting, 'To batde — for king
and Britain!' And the other warriors rose and joined him, lifting
their swords, proud to stake everything on the king's faith.

)

In the Dark Dream

'That was a noble speech,' Merhn whispered to King Arthor
as the warriors departed the Round Table to prepare their
troops. The wizard emerged from the alcove where he had sat
in shadows listening and, with a glance from his strange eyes,
dismissed the king's aide before leading Arthor by the wrist to
the balcony overlooking the battlements and tiered rooftops of

Camelot's inner ward. 'A noble speech indeed. The nature of
war forces the unity of chance and existence. And by that unity,
fate is revealed. And is this what you beheve is God? Fate?'

'Fate is God's expression in the world,' Arthor answered
forthrighdy.

Merlin nodded thoughtfully and gazed out across the fortress
skyline and the tapers of the forest beyond. 'What if God, too, is
subject to fate?'

Arthor gave a look of disgust. 'That is not God. The gods
may be so subject. But the Uncreated One, the Formless,

Nameless God of Whom no image may be made in His
hkeness, of Whom no name may be fashioned or assigned,
the God of my faith, the father of our Savior, of Him all
fate is handiwork. He is the Holy of Holies, the Creator of
the Universe.'

'I see.' Merhn stroked his forked beard. Well, then, consider
that all that we perceive, all that we take to be real, the universe
entire - including our conception of God as the Creator - all
this is in the dark dream of God.'

'I don't understand.' Arthor turned away with annoyance.

'I have a batde to prepare for, Merhn. I have no time for your
casuistry. My people need my full attention.'

'Of course, sire.' Merhn took the king's arm in a grip cold
and severe as iron. 'I will take but one moment more of your
time. The value of all you put at hazard, you place upon God. In
my experience, it is God who looks to us for value. We define
the stakes. We determine the validity of a man's worth. Kings
and paupers, they are the same to God. History is a fabrication, of
no consequence whatsoever in the dark dream. If you are going
to put your hfe at risk, you risk everything — even God's hopes.'

'You speak like a madman, Merlin.' Arthor twisted his
arm free. 'Where were you when my fate lay within the

Spiral Casde? Where were you when I had to prove myself
to Marcus and Urien? What counsel did I get from you when

Nynyve won my heart with her mystic wiles? I needed you
then. Where were you, Merhn?'

'Sire, I will not leave your side again.' Merhn removed his
tall hat, and his hoary head bowed gravely. 'It is God's hope
that I serve you. In my absence, I learned another lesson in
humility.'

Will you prove that by riding with me into battle?' Arthor
put his hands on the wizard's bony shoulders. 'This is a battle

I must win, and I intend to use every weapon I have —
even magic'

The Bear Spoke Next

The dray cart with Lord Monkey harnessed to the reins creaked
and rattled behind Dagonet as he rode north. The sixth arrow
had flown to the sixth star of twilight eight days earlier and
had struck a bear. Since then, the bear had led them wandering
over the tundra. The sun rolled on the horizon, finding its way
through long sunsets to brief nights of hissing auroras.

Hunchbacked by perpetual pain along his spine, shrunken
by fog-chilled nights, scorched by wind and sun, Dagonet had
come to believe that the talking fish had been right and that he
was reverting to his former self. Stopping to drink at rain pools
where mosquitoes hazed hke shadows, he saw his swollen face
reflected as ugly as he had ever looked. Fevers racked him on his
journey, and when they passed, they left his tongue swollen, his
palate warped so that his voice once again lisped, 'Oh mathter,
thith ith tewible. The magic fith wath wight! I have lotht the

Fire Lord'th stwength.'

Mountains of ice floated upon the gray sea beyond the black
fingers of the rocky coast. The bear sat on the shore, the stub
of a white arrow stuck at the back of its hackled neck. The
fletch arrows had been lost somewhere on its long meanderings,
rubbed off against a glacial rock or broken on the hard ground

J
of the tundra. The large beast sat beside a beached ship, an
ancient sea vessel, its broken hull preserved by the cold and
the salt winds. A Phoenician eye stared from the prow of the
blackened timbers, and mummified sailors lay toppled against
the gunwales and thwarts. Even from a distance in the pellucid
arctic air, Dagonet could see their leathered skin wrinkled tight
against their bones, their withered bodies hung with the gray
rags of old hides.

'I am twuly thorry I hurt you,' Dagonet called to the bear.

'I obey a demon withard — and I will thuffer for thith, even
ath you.'

The bear spoke next, in a warm, velvety voice, 'Come
closer, Dagonet. I would have words with you.'

'I am afwaid, bear. Y o u are tho vewy big, and I am
thmall.'

'I am dying, Dagonet. Y o u need not fear me. I have not
the strength to strike you. Come closer, for I am too weak to
raise my voice anymore. Come closer.'

Dagonet dismounted and warily approached the sitting
bear.

'Sit down and listen to me.' The bear's small, close-set eyes
glistened with tears. Y o u r arrow has told me all about you. I
know about your vagabond days after you left your home in

Armorica, ashamed of your dwarfish stature. I know of your
adventure as R e x Mundi with Merhn, Azael, and the Fire

Lord. I am even aware of your doubts about your quest for
the king. With my last breath, I want to tell you - have no
doubts. Throw away the whole pile of vanity in your heart.

Empty yourself. The fish lied to you. It could not help itself.

A fish Hves its whole hfe by deception and vanity. That is the
way of survival in the waters, where hfe is perpetual struggle
for food and procreation. No wonder it yearned to become
again a hazel tree.'

'Gweat bear, ith thith the tweathure I theek — your
withdom?'

'No, Dagonet.' The bear lay forward and rested its dismayed
face on its paws. 'The king's treasure is in the hold of this ship.

Reliquary gold from foregone dynasties of ^ g y p t — ancient gold
of sarcophagi and statues plundered by grave robbers millennia
ago. The curse upon them has been paid in full by the doomed
mariners who lost their way to this arctic shore. Leave their
carcasses untouched and take only the treasure for your king,
and no part of the curse will follow you.'

'Gweat bear, thank you! But tell me, why are you tho kind
to me? I have thlain you — I have taken your hfe.'

'You have given me a meaningful death with your magic
arrow, Dagonet.' The bear's voice dimmed, and its wet eyes
closed. 'Now, I leave behind this noble form that lived long
and proud upon the bounty of the earth. I go where there are
no forms, no boundaries, illusions carried through many hves
disappear. Something beyond happiness awaits me. Look! I see
it now! Y o u already stand in the midst of this deep truth. Only
your eyes deceive you.'

Mother Mary, everyone knows except me! Cei has told my warriors,
the priests, even the stable grooms about his journey to hell, where
he learned that Merlin has stolen the soul of Morgeu's child. That
is why the wizard was away from me for so long: he had hopes of
returning the child's soul to the hollow hills, to be abandoned there
so that Morgeu would miscarry. When I confronted Cei, he claimed
he did not tell me for he was certain that Merlin already had. But

Merlin has told me nothing of this. From Cei, I learned that the soul
that Merlin has taken is the soul of Morgeu's father, duke Gorlois!

Can this be? Mother Mary, are our immortal souls destined to transit
from one life to the next? I know that Mother Ygrane has told me that
my own soul is that of an ancient Celt warrior, but I thought — or I
wanted to think — that she spoke in poetry, not actuality. Cei informs
me that Merlin holds the soul of the unholy child in a gem. If I say
nothing, then the wizard will say nothing of it. He intends for Morgeu
to deliver a stillborn. That will end the evil that the enchantress worked on me. And yet, this solution — it does not feel just and good to me.

Mother Mary, what should I do? Now that I know, I cannot ignore
what is happening. Always you have taught me, 'Love is first.' But
can I love Morgeu? Dare I love her? She intends my destruction. And
yet, your Son, our Savior . . . if I am to Hve what he has taught, I
must act — at once.

/

Friend of Innocence

Arthor went alone to Morgeu's chamber and bade her maid
announce him. She lay in bed, covered in scarlet satin sheets,
her belly large, her orange hair in disarray, the small, black eyes
in her round face hard with suspicion. Arthor accepted the stool
that the maid offered him and sat beside the prone enchantress.

'I leave for batde soon, and I have come to forgive you for the
unholy deed that you provoked from me.'

'Your Christian conscience is tweaking you, brother?' A
smear of disdain wrung her fatigued face. 'I seek not your
forgiveness.'

'I offer it nonetheless, Morgeu.' Arthor placed his hand upon
hers, and she withdrew it quickly. 'We come from the same
womb, you and I. Sister, what you did with me was wrong —
evil. I abhor it.'

'As I abhor you, brother, sired on my mother by the man
responsible for my father's death.'

'Is that true?' Arthor asked with genuine anguish. 'Did Uther

Pendragon murder Gorlois?'

Morgeu's tight eyes grew tighter. 'My father followed yours
onto the batde plain outside Londinium — and Merhn cursed

Gorlois so that he fell beneath the knives of the enemy.'

Arthor bowed his head. 'I see now why you hate me. You
beheve I am Merhn's creature.'

'Are you not?'

The king looked up sharply. 'No! I serve God and the people
of Britain.'

'Do you think you would wear that lovely gold chaplet
now had not Merhn arranged for you to draw the sword from
the stone?' Morgeu turned her face away in disgust. Y o u are

Lailoken's foil - nothing more, Arthor. Y o u do not serve God.

Y o u serve a demon.'

'Sister—' Arthor sagged where he sat, shoulders slumped,
arms dangling between his knees. 'I did not come here to win
your affection. I came to forgive you, to assure you that I have
forsaken all anger toward you for what you have done to me.

I seek no retribution for your cruel deed. I understand better
now your rage against Merhn - and against me. I cannot undo
that. But I will not further it. I will not be your enemy, Morgeu.

Y o u are my sister, and I love you no matter what you do.'

Morgeu made no reply. Her mind circled upon itself,
seeking the king's motives while searching for methods of
enchantment that could bind him to her will. But before she
could act, his hand reached out and lay upon her taut womb.

'The child does not move.' His touch caressed her gendy,'

with caring. 'I have just this morning discovered why. Merhn
holds the child's soul.' He removed his hand and stood. 'I will
go to him now and command the release of Gorlois's soul.

This child will hve. Not by my will shall hfe, which can
only be granted by God, be denied any soul — even one
hostile to me.'

Morgeu felt as though enchantment had turned upon her
and enraptured her with words she could hardly beheve. Her
mind could fathom no motive for Arthor's succor — unless
he hed. Yet, her keen senses had read no he in his voice
nor in his touch. He spoke the truth. And when she turned
her head to query of him 'why' - he was gone. She sat
up, surprised, beginning to accept that he had meant every
word, and that his motive was simple: being a friend to
innocence, he could not kill the child within her, unholy or
not.

I Turn Death Toward Me

Arthor found Merlin in his grotto below Camelot. Shadows
cognate with dragon's teeth descended from the cavern ceiling,
slick in the blue glow of rock shelves where hellish pharma-
copoeia cluttered: glass flaskets boiling squalid infusions that
suffused chemical luminescence, flaring kilns, steam-seeping
vats, and hissing bronze boilers. The bare-headed wizard stood
up from where he had sat with his face warped to homuncular
proportions by a crystal sphere. Before him, metal-cased scrolls
lay strewn upon a stone table and behind him, a crude, man-
sized statue of a pregnant woman flickered with fire-shadows
from the alcoves of alchemic apparatus. An acrid, infernal pall
tainted the air.

'Merhn, I kifow about Gorlois's soul.' The king strode
agilely over the glossy, mineral steps of the cave. 'I've come
to command you to release that hfe to Morgeu.'

In the red atmosphere of the grotto, Merhn's face shone
with a demonic cast, the owlish tufts over the dark sockets hke
little horns, the straggly beard grumous, the long, bald head
misshapen. 'Sire, I cannot obey you.'

Arthor stopped in midstep. 'What do you say?'

'My lord — I dare not obey you.' Merhn sighed profoundly
and stepped from behind the stob of rock that served as a table.

'I have put my own soul in jeopardy to spare you the evil of
this incest child.'

The king cocked his head, trying to keep the shapes before
him ordered and discrete in the blurry hght. 'How is your soul
in jeopardy, wizard?'

'The Nine Queens have ordered me to return Gorlois's soul
to Morgeu's womb — and I have disobeyed.' Merhn's chrome
eyes caught the burning colors from the colossal horde of retorts
and alembics and shone by turn red and blue. 'If I do as they
command — as my king commands — I doom you. This evil
child will grow up to slay you. Of this, I am certain.'

'Then, I turn death toward me.' Arthor stepped forward,
his yellow eyes afire. 'I am not some king of ancient Greece
who seeks to flee his mortality and thus only inspire a greater
tragedy. My doom was assured when I was born.'

'Of a certainty, sire. But not this doom.' Merhn reached out
with his large, waxen hands. 'I can protect you from Morgeu
and the incest she provoked from you. That is in my power.'

'Merhn!' Arthor took the wizard's hands, cold, hard hands.

' Y o u abrogate God's will! That is wrong. It is luciferian. I will
not have it. You are my wizard. I am your king. Y o u must
obey me.'

'In this, my young, my innocent king, I dare not.''

'You must!' Arthor held Merhn's doornful chromatic eyes
with a stern gaze. 'I am a Christian king. I need your demon
powers, but if you are to stay at my side, you must put aside
forever your demon will. Y o u will further my will before God

— or you must depart from me.'

Merhn withdrew his hands from Arthor's grip and stepped
back. From under his robe, he produced a diamond big as his
thumb. He held it up in the mercurial hght, and a moth of fire
seemed to flutter within it. Then, he dropped it to the ground,
and it clinked across the varnished rock floor to the toe of the
king's boot. 'Crush it, and the soul will be released and return
at once to the body Morgeu has prepared for it. But do so and
you bring into the world the very enemy who will take you
from this world.'

Arthor hesitated one cold moment, the will in him suddenly
drowsy as a snake at the thought of his doom. 'God help me!'

he cried from the depths of his fear and shame and brought his
heel down upon the Dragon's gem, shattering it underfoot hke
powdered ice.

Animal Souls

Ygrane stood upon a wagon, her body strapped with leather
thews to a cedar post. The rags of her habit, stained brown
with dried blood, fluttered in the cool wind that rummaged
through the trees on the hillsides. Lancers rode to either side
of the wagon, and foot soldiers led the battle-dressed horse
that pulled the witch before the main phalanx of the magister
militum's army.

Gorthyn came riding from ahead, a shark's grin shooting
straight back from a mouth of missing and yellowed teeth.

'Cold Kitchen is ten leagues distant. We'll take that hamlet
at noon. Our scouts say that your boy remains walled in at

Camelot. Syrax will have an opportunity now to employ his
mighty siege engines.'

Ygrane ignored the warlord and lifted her bruised face to
the pollen wind. Since she was a child, she had seen invisible
things. She saw them still, the faerie glints among the blooming
linden, animal souls browsing in the creekbeds, and the pale
people loitering in the darkest corners of the forest, watching
her solemnly. Once, she was their queen. They would have
come to her aid then, at twilight, when the smiting rays of the
sun had cooled. The lancers, the foot soldiers, and the leering
warlord'would have fallen feverish, pierced by the poison arrows
of the Daoine Sid.

But she was the Celtic queen no more. She had put her
faith in the Nameless God's only-begotten. The pale people
had braved the hurtful dayhght to see for themselves if the

Deity would save her. But she knew their risk was poindess.

Her God did not dwell in the ragged clouds of spring or in
the running rivers or in any created thing. God originated
in the unexpected geometries far smaller than Democritus's
atoms. During her long, tranceful prayers before the Graal, the

Fire Lords had informed her that God had created the entire
universe from a point of hght smaller than an atom, smaller than
the very grain of space. Existence lost half its oneness when that
happened.

God would not intervene. Because whatever happened in
this world happened to only one half of what was, and God had
concern only for the whole. The animal souls she espied among
the narrow lightshafts of the woods seemed to know this. They
drifted calmly between the trees, mindless of their bodies lost
to winter, slowly fading into the incandescence of spring.

She would die that way, she decided. When Gorthyn came
to cut her throat, she would not flinch. Her soul would flow
with her spilled blood, and she would float away across the
earth, mindless to the mocking queries and jeering taunts of
the pale people, who would wonder aloud why her God had
not saved her. Like the animal souls, she would explain nothing
to them.

'No word from your boy,' Gorthyn shouted. 'No ransom.

No reply at all.' He drew his hone closer, and the lancers pulled
aside to make way for him. 'You abandoned him as an infant.

And now he abandons you.'

She lowered her swollen face to meet her tormentor's merry
eyes. 'I forgive you for what you have done to me.' Her raspy
voice broke in her parched throat. 'But Arthor - he cannot
forgive you — for what you have done to Britain. Fear him.'

'Haw!' Gorthyn yanked his horse away from the wobbly
wagon. 'I fear no man and certainly not your gende Arthor. I
took the measure of him at Cunetio. He had not the stomach
to kill me then, and so he sealed his doom. On a pike, his head;
will ride south beside yours to King Wesc's realm. There, your
skulls will serve as goblets for the true masters of this island.'

Gorthyn rode off to report to Syrax and Platorius, and

Ygrane returned her attention to the pale people hidden from
the yellow heat of the day in the deeper shadows of the forest.

Around them, animal souls came and went, hke a happiness
that never grew old.

Mother Mary, if only I could hear your voice. If only I could know
that I have chosen wisely. Syrax demands ransom for my mother's life.

Merlin has provided a large cask of ancient silver to buy her freedom.

But I will not send a penny to the traitor who has burned our farmlands
and doomed so many to famine. Not a penny! Am I wrong? Mother

Ygrane is your Son's devoted servant. I know in my heart that the
only salvation she seeks is from Him. And yet, she is my mother.

Merlin believes I should do all I can to spare her. Once, he was her
servant, when she was queen. He has become so sentimental since I
took the soul of Morgeu's child from him. With teary eyes, he tells
me stories of his mother, blessed Saint Optima, and he weeps for the
evil he did as a demon. I believe he feels remorse for what he did —for
a grim future he sees as clearly as memory.

Sickness of Moonlight

Bors Bona squatted under the bellied canopy at the entry of
his pavihon tent, watching the rain seething in the forest, the
gray shape of trees gathering out of the fog. The clearing where
his army hunkered in their tents had flooded, and many of the
soldiers had withdrawn into the forest, to build shelters among
the higher boughs. 'Eight days now,' he mumbled. 'Rain and
more rain. Not even our messenger birds can escape this storm
to inform the king that we are with him. If I weren't a Christian,

I'd say the gods have cursed us.'

With malefic tendrils, the fog infiltrated the tents, moving
with menace out of the forest and across the clearing. It
glowed Hke phosphorus in the vague daylight as it slouched
into ditches and root furrows. Scouts returned to announce
that clear weather lay a day's march south, but each day that they
slogged through the mud, the spring thunderheads followed.

'Syrax works magic against us,' Euffasia spoke from inside
the tent, where she stirred a pot of whitebeans. 'This storm
has every trait of magic. The unnatural fog. The following
clouds.'

'Syrax is a Christian for all his foppish pagan garb.' Bors
picked up a pebble and tossed it into the dimpled water.

'Money is the only magic he knows. And money doesn't buy
rain.' He stood up with a weary groan and stretched his thick
body. 'Besides, he has no notion we've turned against him. He
would need Daedalus's wings to fly over our position and see
that we have shifted from an offensive stance against Camelot
to an attack posture against him.'

'Witches fly.' Eufrasia ladled the whitebeans into a clay
bowl. 'In Caledonia, there are witches who fly with the
cranes. They track the herds for the hunters. And they are
never wrong.'

'Morgeu the Fey,' Bors whispered and stepped into the
fragrant tent. 'She is a witch as her mother was before her.

Perhaps this is her curse.'

'Your priests' prayers seem ineffective.' Eufrasia handed him
the bowl with a wooden spoon and a rusk of barley bread. 'My
father, Aidan, has become intrigued by your religion. But I tell
him it is better to keep our trust in wicca and the old ways.'

Bors accepted the food with a grateful nod. 'I've heard
enough of the glories of Caledonia from you these many wet
days. Do not dun me now with the wonders of wicca. Do you
think your true love — what's his name? Dagomere?'

'Dagonet.'

'Do you think Dagonet is going to give up his good British
comforts to return with you to cold Caledonia where witches
fly and the herds run?' he asked around a mouthful of hot beans.

'I think not, fair lady. Ah, this is good. Y o u are accomphshed
with the kettle. That more than makes up for your incessant
blathering.'

'As if you haven't given me your share of chatter during
our damp confinement. If I didn't . . .'

'Hush!' Bors held his wooden spoon aloft, eyes raised toward
the sagging ceiling. 'Listen. The rain has stopped!' /

Outside, the sky had abrupdy cleared. Blue heavens, streaked
with mares' tails, let down broad slants of sunlight among
retreating towers of stormclouds. And on the ground, the fog
crawled off hke a thing alive, hke a sickness of moonlight.

The Goal Without a Journey

Seven days north from where he killed the bear, Dagonet
released his last arrow at the seventh star of twilight. He stood
at the northern hrnit of land, upon a cold jade sea far from
everything familiar. White bears watched him off an island of
blue snow. In the distance, other icebergs herded in drifting
euphoria hke ghosts frozen to corporeality. Schools of silver
fish veered through the green water at his feet and vanished
into the nightworld of the ocean's depths.

Long ago, by some faerie path, he had left Britain far behind.

This was an alien shore. His arrow flew through a sky hung with
seven stars and draperies of windy, plutonic light and fell into a
sea that closed around it in viscous ripples.

By chilled starlight he found her a short while later, washed
up on the gravel shore. The arrow had pierced her breast,
near her heart. He carried her to the driftwood fire upon
the rocky strand, where Lord Monkey danced excitedly at the
sight of another human being. But Dagonet wondered if she
was human.

Her cinnamon hair carried tiny lights within it that rhymed
with the fire. Her gray eyes watched him sleepily, peepholes
to a winter day. He gawked at her, a man made lonely by
her beauty.

'I'm thorry! My arrow fell into the thea. How could it hit
you? Are you a mermaid?'

'I am the Lady of the Lake.' Her eyes roiled in pain, and
she gazed silendy at the pelt of stars.

'I'm thorry! I'm thorry!' His hands flustered in his matted
hair, and he looked despairingly at Lord Monkey. 'What can
we do?'

Lord Monkey leaped from the riding board onto the bed
of the dray cart and cluttered excitedly.

'Yeth! We mutht take her to the withard!'

He hfted the beautiful woman onto the cart and strapped

Lord Monkey into his leather harness before snapping the reins.

Even as he turned to hop out of the cart and go to his hone,
tlje darkness closed hke a tunnel. He saw his horse far away,
watching him cat-eyed on the shore of the cold sea. It dwindled
to a star and was gone.

Blood hammered through his head in a fright of abrupt
darkness. Sunlight splashed over the cart, and he and the
monkey winced against the brightness of a spring day at the
seashore. The beach could have been Armorica, where he had
frolicked as a child. But it was not. It was a rocky coastline of
unfamiliar contour, but natural. Crescent dunes chmbed toward
hills of dense trees, and overhead gulls wheeled and shrieked.

'Where are we?' he asked, crouching over the wounded
woman.

'The goal without a journey.'

'I don't underthtand.'

'Poor Dagonet. Y o u have served your master Merhn well,
though unwittingly.' Nynyve closed her eyes and breathed
shallowly and with much pain. 'He used you to strike me
with a magic arrow, so that I am forced to leave this world

— until I return to this shore in Cymru for your king.'

'Why? Why would Merhn do thith?'

'To protect his king. If Arthor loved me too well, he would
leave this world, to hve with me on Avalon.'

'The Apple Island . . .' Dagonet began to understand. 'That
ith the goal without a journey — the plathe outthide of time.'

'Yes, Dagonet. Avalon lies across the sea from here.' Her
lovely face contorted as she tried to sit up. 'Take me to
the water.'

Dagonet obeyed. He carried her over the shell-strewn sand
and kelp mounds to a placid cove, where the water lapped
gendy. As soon as he lowered her into the sea, she dissolved
away, a mirage, a reflection that dimmed into the smooth
water. The white arrow drifted on the surface, and when he
reached to pluck it, he saw himself in the sea's dark mirror.

All magic had drained from him, a hunchbacked dwarf with a
large, freckled face.

Going Invisible

Fog silvered the grass. Like a nightbeast, it came crawling
through the trees. Initially timid of the dayhght, it shnked
along the root ledges and into the shadowed gullies. Ygrane,
strapped to the cedar post, her blackened, swollen eyehds
painfully squinting in the sunshine, watched the animal souls
flee from the shtherous fog. And by that, she knew these mists
were not natural. Magic thickened this haze, and it moved
through the woods with a lyrical obscenity. Feverish shapes
rose up from the tuffets, quivering tendrils stroking the hillsides
and hedges with long and lingering caresses.

The foot soldiers and lancers looked up with perplexity at
the blue sky and muttered disconcertedly about the fog rolling
up from the creekbeds and flaring through the forest. A scout
galloped out of the fallen cloudbank on the road ahead, pebbles
clattering behind the hone's heels, its mane streaming, the rider
flapping his leather hat in one hand and clutching the reins in the
other. 'The tyrant's coming!' he shouted as he slashed past.

'Merhn . . .' Ygrane whispered and closed her eyes.

A whisde of winter wind jolted her to a wide-eyed stare,
and the footmen leading her wagon fell under a volley of
arrows. The lancers lowered their weapons, crouched behind
their shields, and formed a defensive ring. Like moonsmoke, the
fog billowed over them, and the landscape went lunar, white
and sterile. Even shouted voices sounded mute. The boreal
wind whisded again. Wounded groans and shrieks surrounded
her, and the clatter of lances and shields on the road bricks
followed.

Out of the swirling mists, a figure of shadowy robes wob-
bled, far shorter than Merhn and more stout. A woman with
frizzled hair and a swollen belly strenuously pulled herself up
and into the wagon. 'Mother! What have these whoresons done
to you?'

'Morgeu—' Ygrane's mind jarred as the leather thews
loosened from her hmbs and she fell forward into her daughter's
strong arms. 'This — this is your magic?'

We must not dawdle here.' Morgeu hoisted Ygrane upright.

'Arthor comes now hke the whirlwind, and we are in the midst
of it. You must listen to me. Your pain is a dream - and now you
are awake. Your legs are strong. Your body is hght. Together,
we fly!'

Morgeu's enchantment erased all suffering in the older
woman's flesh, and indeed she felt airy as they descended from
the wagon and clambered over the fallen bodies of the lancers.

Where are we going?'

Morgeu's arm tightened about her mother's waist. 'We are
going where these clashing armies will not crush us. And to get
there, we are going invisible.'

'Morgeu — you put the child you carry in jeopardy!' Ygrane
glanced about wildly at the rushing shadows in the fog. 'We are
in a battlefield.'

'Have no fear.' The enchantress guided Ygrane down into
a weed-choked ditch. 'My child moves now and is ready to
be born. There is no better place for this warrior to enter our
world than here among the furious battling of men. Help me,
mother.'

'Morgeu!' Ygrane knelt in the bracken beside her daughter
under the shouts of soldiers and the thunder of hooves. Y o u
are giving birth now — in this dangerous place?'

'Danger is the fate of this child, mother,' she spoke through
gnashed teeth and braced her legs apart against the sides of the
ditch. 'Danger is this child's path — to the throne of Britain!'

Blood Brotherhood

'Merlin's magic has spun a fog upon the highway to Cold

Kitchen,' Severus Syrax said to Count Platorius as they rode
upon the high trail above the River Amnis. Below them, they
could see the red pantile roofs of the hamlet hot with sunlight,
and on the highway to the south, a cloud had fallen to earth.

'No matter. Our siege engines are stopped, but Gorthyn has
fanned our army into the forests, and we will outflank the
wizard's pitiful fog.'

Platorius unscrolled a message-ribbon handed him by an
attendant. 'Merlin has rescued the abbess Ygrane. That was the
intent of his magical haze. She offers no protection as a shield
now. I told you we should have listened to Gorthyn and sent
her head to Camelot. We lost a chance to inflict terror on our
enemy.'

'Let them have the tyrant's mother.' The magister militum
adjusted his turbaned helmet as he peered down the river
gorge at the streams of soldiers hurrying along the banks.

'King Wesc has bolstered our numbers with three legions of

Wolf Warriors. Three legions, Platorius! Eighteen thousand
blood-crazed fighters! The tyrant is doomed. I have no concern
that our ally Bors slogs through mud in the north, tied down by
rain. We don't need him. All we ever needed was to remove
him as a rival. And now that he is not a true contender, there
will be less that we must share with him when we achieve
victory. A victory that is as certain as the sunrise that follows
nightfall. Our forces are overwhelming — too strong even for

Arthor's fanatical blood brotherhood.'

'We fight for peace and alliance, Severus.' Platorius pointed
across the steep gorge at the distant bastion walls and garret
towers of Camelot. 'They fight for dominance. Victory is not
always assured the noble of cause. Base as their motives are,
the tyrant's blood brothers are desperate and will fight without
hope of quarter. Y o u may withdraw to your family's estates in

Gaul, Canaan, ^ g y p t . The Foederatus have sanctuary in Saxony,

Juteland, and Frisia. But for Arthor, there is only Britain.'

'Do you fear for your holdings, my dear count?' Severus

Syrax smiled thinly. 'The Atrebates territory is secure. And
as I promised you, once the tyrant is overthrown, you will
reign as high king of Britain. I am content as magister militum
of Londinium, managing my family's affairs of trade in Britain.

But your lineage is among the most venerable on the island,
and so you shall be king.'

'The way that brigand Gorthyn struts about, calling himself
king of the Belgae, I beheve he will covet the tide of monarch.'

Platorius looked nervously at Syrax, and the dark pouches under
the count's eyes trembled with a frightened tic. 'King Wesc has
placed him in command of the storm troops. When this war is
over, he may well use them to take what he covets.'

Severus Syrax's smile widened. 'My niece yet owes me a
favor for her recent failure in Londinium. Perhaps when these
troubles are over, King Gorthyn will enjoy a visit from our
alluring Selwa.'

The Bag of Dreams

Upon a sturdy black mare, Merhn rode beside King Arthor into
batde. He had intended to wear no armor but to trust in his
magic to protect him, but the king had insisted the wizard don
a chain-mail vest and a bronze legionary helmet with neck- and
cheek-guards and white crest feathers. He felt glad that he had
complied, for as soon as they departed the fortress, the enemy

' rushed from the forests onto the very slopes of Camelot. Arrows
darkened the sky, and shngshot rocks clanged off his helmet and
the face mask of his horse.

Arthor wore a shiny bronze eagle vizard and rode with his
famous Madonna-painted shield raised over his helmeted head
to protect himself from falling projectiles. Bedevere gazed out
from behind the mask of a woeful Greek fury. Looking at them,

Merhn felt as though he kept company again with demons. At
his side, slung from his shoulder, he carried a cowhide sack
rattling with amulets and talismans, a bag of dreams by which
he planned to bedevil their foes.

The war cries of the king's men emboldened the wizard,
and he rode faster. As a demon, he had presided over numerous
battles and was familiar with every hostility among men. But as
a mortal he had direcdy partaken in only one armed conflict.

During his first days away from his mother in the kingdom of

Cos near Greta Bridge, he had dared take a stand with farmers
against a Pictish warband. The Furor had driven him mad after
that slaughter — and echoes of that madness resounded in his
long skull with the sound of the arrows' cold wind and the
first clang of metal clashing on metal. Merlin gritted his teeth
against the jarring sounds and reached into his bag for a weapon
of magic.

The king's assignment had been simple. Merhn was charged
to help Arthor drive a wedge into the advancing hne. Kyner
and Cei would rush in behind and establish defensive positions
well away from Camelot. Once the fields were cleared, Lot and
his northmen would descend into the river gorge to drive the
invaders south, into the marshes. Urien would hold and protect
the hamlet of Cold Kitchen. And Marcus carried the respon-
sibility of defending Camelot and advancing as summoned.

But in the midst of the fray, Merlin became disoriented.

The screaming of hones, the jostling of their big bodies with
scurrying foot soldiers scattering among them, stabbing and
slashing, heightened his sense of madness. He chanted calming
spells, and they worked as he bounded among the jammed
warriors. From the bag of dreams, he withdrew a terror-amulet
and tossed it at a company of ferocious berserkers, a squad of
horribles clad in human skin, shriveled faces staring eyeless from
their thighs, scalps hanging from their belts.

The amulet exploded panic among the barbarous warriors,
and they fell over themselves in sudden retreat. Merlin hollered
victoriously and reached for another magical y/eapon. But at that
moment, a flung ax struck his helmet and split it wide, sending
him careening off his hone and into the thriving melee.

Arthor shoved his steed through a throng of frenzied foot
soldien swarming about the fallen wizard, Excahbur hacking
furiously. He pranced a circle about Merhn, driving the enemy
off and allowing defenden and a surgeon to reach the bloodied
wizard. 'He's alive!' the surgeon called — and the king waved
them off to Camelot and swung his horse back toward the fury
of the batde.

That Thing You Dread

The loss of Merhn signaled a drastic turn in the battle. Word
that the tyrant's wizard had been slain spread swiftly through
the ranks of the storm troops, and the berserkers that Merlin
had sent fleeing in terror regrouped and attacked with a vicious
frenzy. The forces of the magister militum's army took heart from
the fury of their Foederatus comrades and charged through the
forests onto the plains of Camelot.

Arthor had no choice but to summon Kyner and Cei before
he broke the enemy's line. Above the pounding of shod hooves,
their drums and pipes sounded, declaring their entry into the
batde. But to little effect. Out of the hill forests to the north,

Gorthyn arrived leading a full legion of Wolf Warriors — pagans
bedecked in the skins of animals and pieces of uniforms ripped
from the corpses of fallen Britons.

To prevent a rout, the king had the trumpeters call for

Marcus, and he emerged from Camelot with mounted lancers
and archers. Soon a vast confusion ranged across the open
fields. Intent on breaking the wave of assailants, Arthor drove
his company to the forest line with Kyner and Cei flailing at
the enemy to either side, desperate to keep the Wolf Warriors
from outflanking their king.

Marcus prevailed in turning Gorthyn's attack. From the
batdements of Camelot, Lot and Urien waved banners, urging
the duke to turn back. But Marcus would take no orders except
from the king, and he plunged into the forest after Gorthyn. And
there, another legion of Wolf Warriors lurked. Immediately, he
was surrounded, and Lot and Urien had no choice but to quickly
lead their forces onto the field, to extricate him.

The screams of horses and men melled in the air under
the scything hiss of arrows and slinged missiles. Everywhere,
horses trampled the fallen or collapsed and lay fallen them-
selves and men scrambled over them. Lanced bodies stood
erect in death. Berserkers tore away helmets and scalped their
victims as they thrashed beneath them. Arrows pinned soldiers
to trees.

Arthor fought ruthlessly through this horror and had vehe-
mendy pushed his company into the forest, desperate to break
through the line. But there was no end to the enemy's depth.

A third legion of Wolf Warriors whelmed through the under-
brush. Raptor-mask uplifted exposing a grim face, Cei surged
to the king's side. We have forced ourselves to that thing
you dread!'

Arthor knew what he meant. The thing he most dreaded in
battle was finding himself surrounded. His aggressive fighting
style had frequendy placed him in that position during his
tenure as Kyner's warrior, and burdened with this reputation
few warriors followed him into batde. But then, he himself had
only been a warrior and those few fanatics who had dared joined
him then he had felt no qualms about leaving to fight their
own way out. Now, as king, the realization that he had led
his entire company into an indefensible position chilled him to
the marrow.

'Call for Urien and Lot!' he shouted above the screaming.

Cei shook his head and signaled the trumpeter for a retreat.

'They are with Marcus! He is caught as we are in the north
forest!'

Only then, as he, Bedevere, and Cei fought their way
back toward Kyner's stance at the edge of the forest, did the
king realize he had terribly miscalculated the strength of his
opponent. Only then, among a wild frenzy of headlong horses
and the death cries of his ruined ranks leaping around him, did
he understand the batde was lost.

Fields of Darkness

Nightfall did not stall the fighting. Gorthyn torched the forest,
and by the raging firelight his Wolf Warriors battered Camelot's
defenders on the plains. A shift in the wind alone saved the
king's men from immediate defeat. The churning smoke of the
burning woods poured over the fields, and the flames ate into

Gorthyn's lines, forcing him to pull away from the plains.

'Fall back to Camelot!' Kyner bawled. 'Fall back and nego-
tiate with Syrax!'

Arthor lifted his eagle-mask, his young face buckling with
rage and tears. 'No! No negotiations! They will tear down

Camelot. We must fight them here - through the night.'

The king ordered Marcus and Kyner to hold the plains
with the remnants of their troops. And he dispatched Urien
and Lot to protect the highway to Cold Kitchen while he
and what remained of Cei's men pursued Gorthyn through
the fiery wall of topphng trees and blazing brush into the
smoldering forest. Unreal directions of smoke, haze, and spurts
of flame baffled both Gorthyn and Arthor, and they circled each
other blindly.

Pale and dismembered bodies lay in the red shadows. Among
the turbulent darkness of sifting smoke, corpses feathered with
arrows mimed the reed grass and canes. The king's men stalked
their enemy in small groups — and the enemy hunted them. The
incessant crackle of the simmering woods, the gibbered calls of the
dying, and the intermittent screaming of horses obscured hearing as
deftly as the thick vapors and nocturnal shadows dimmed sight.

Whenever opponents stumbled upon each other, the fight-
ing convulsed with brutal brevity. Combatants lunged in and
out of the dark. Weapons flashed and cries whisked away on
the flying fumes. Occasionally, the wind brisked, and the forest
flames flared, silhouetting a dark riot of assailants entangled in
smoke. Then, the wind slimmed away, and blackness swept in,
concocting anonymity once more. With frightful incongruence,
the king's men confronted themselves, swords raised, deflected
before the fatal instant by common cries.

After midnight, the last of the flames faded entirely, and

Gorthyn commanded his warriors to seek coveys and lurk in
waiting. Shouts reeled out of the night where the king's men
stumbled upon them. At last, Arthor was obliged to call his soldiers
together and return with them to the fields of darkness.

'If we negotiate now,' Kyner pleaded with his stepson as

Arthor approached the chiefs bonfire, 'we may yet save what
remains.'

Arthor removed his helmet and glowered at Kyner. 'Syrax
will not negotiate. He believes he is winning.'

'Believes?' Cei queried sarcastically. 'At dawn, his legions of

Wolf Warriors will sweep over us and his regulars will march in
to occupy Camelot.'

'You want to negotiate, too?' Arthor glared in surprise at
his brawny stepbrother. 'What hope is there in surrender?'

'Much hope for the living,' Kyner replied. 'Must everyone
die? We are defeated on the field but not yet before God or
the Holy Father in Ravenna. The pope may yet intercede, for
you are indisputably the rightful heir to Uther Pendragon.'

'No!' Arthor exploded. 'I am king! God has made me king!

God! And God can destroy me if He so wills. But I will not
surrender!'

Kyner and Cei cringed and lowered their heads, sharing
doomful looks.

Seeing that, Arthor shook off his rage and frustration and
reached out a gentle hand toward them. 'Father - brother—'

He spoke in a more quiet voice but no less firmly. Y o u r
optimism blinds you, Kyner.' He accepted a flagon of water
from Bedevere. 'Think for a moment hke our enemy. We will
be put to death and those loyal to us will be enslaved. That is
the Saxon way. And do not doubt for an instant that it is the

Foederatus we fight here.'

'What do you propose?' Cei asked in a near-whisper,
exhausted and frightened.

'Rest.' The king drank deeply, then spoke through his teeth.

'Tomorrow we fight - we fight to the death.'

Mother Mary! Mother Mary! Mother Mary! Mother Mary! Mother

Mary - Mother - Mother - Mother — Mother - Mother . . .

Locked in Nightmares

Merhn lay comatose in the king's bed. Nothing the surgeons
did to revive him worked, for his soul had lofted free of his
physical form. Into the ether worlds, he drifted.

He recognized warped space from his prior hfe as a demon:

the day sky with its transparent blue auras hke jumbled blocks
of ice, the night with its cubes of onyx riddled with wormfires.

He knew every path to all the possible heavens and hells. And
yet, hard as he looked, he could not find the pathway back into
his mortal body.

The vastness of space ranged in every direction. Earth itself
was but a mote, a sandgrain caught in a slow whirlpool of gravity,
spinning inward toward the naked flame of the sun. And the sun,
too, whirled in a vortex of suns, hundreds of billions of suns
spinning in an incandescent pinwheel about a black core that
swallowed all hght. Into that blackness, angels and demons had
fallen and never returned. Some claimed it was the way back to
the origin, to the paradise of infinite energy where everything
had begun. But no one had ever returned to confirm that.

He did not want to go that way. He wanted to go back to

Earth, to his human body, to his mortal destiny as the king's
wizard. But he could not find Earth among the vastness of black
emptiness and the scattering of stars. He was adrift again, as he
had been during most of his existence as a demon. After the
fiery explosion that had begun space-time, that had flung him
and the others free of the blissful unity that they had shared
with Her, he had desponded of ever finding Her again. He
had felt then as he felt now, tiny and adrift in an enormity
of cold, dark emptiness. The hght of the origin that he had
clung to only burned sharper in the frigid vacuum, and he had
let it go. Like so many of the others, he had let the hght go
and become dark and cold as the void itself.

N o w he sought the hght. He sought the one particular hght
that was the sun and the infinitesimal particle that was the Earth.

But there was no direction in space that he could discern. It
all looked the same, the slow-curving blackness strewn with
dark matter, gouts of dust and gas, smoldering here and there
to starfields. He drifted. A long time he drifted alone, locked
in nightmares of memory and fear.

He remembered the long, long aeons of wandering through
the void. At least then he had enjoyed the company of his fellow
demons. "When at last they had found worlds that the angels had
built, they had enjoyed the opportunity to exert their despair,
and they had raged exuberandy against the fragile things that
the angels had fashioned. How many worlds had he destroyed?

These memories of fury haunted him, and he wailed into the
emptiness.

All that soothed him was his memory that at last, on Earth,
he had betrayed his fellow demons to become Saint Optima's
son, to become one of the very fragile gutsacks they had
despised. He had given himself to the angels, to the Fire Lords.

And though that memory soothed him, it also inspired the fear
that he had lost that one, frail connection with the hght, the
original fire of creation. And he prayed, 'Forgive me, forgive
me! I had become arrogant again. I had stolen Gorlois's soul as
if I were God Herself. I had tried to shape hves as though I had
the light of the Fire Lords. I had forgotten that I had become a
man and hke all men can only reflect hght. And my punishment

— my torment — is that I have become again a demon, who has
forsaken the light!'

The World Asunder

Out of the warsmoke rolling across the night fields of strewn
dead, mired in blood and batdefield dirt, Ygrane and Morgeu
made their way to the gates of Camelot. Morgeu carried in her
arms an infant gummed with birth-chrism. The guards admitted
them at once, and a surgeon and attendants hurried them on
litters to Morgeu's suite, where they were cleansed and their
wounds dressed.

Revived by steaming broths from the king's kitchen and
root brews from the surgeon, Morgeu nursed her baby. Ygrane
examined the infant and was pleased to find it whole and
unmarked by its frightful entry into the world or its unholy
hneage. 'What will you name him?' she asked, sitting at her
daughter's bedside.

'Mordred,' Morgeu whispered and kissed the child's brow.

'Such a fiercesome name, daughter.' Ygrane suppressed a
shiver. 'That is the Brythonic appellation for Mardoc, warlord of
the Other World. Do you hope for him such a bloody destiny?'

'Does his brutal birth not already bespeak the terror he will
inspire?' Morgeu offered a grim smile. 'In truth, mother, I drew
his name from the Latin motor credere — slow of belief, for his soul
was kept from him by those who had no faith of his worthiness
to hve. Yet, he is beautiful, isn't he, mother? He is worthy
of all that Merhn strove so hard to keep from him — life and
power.'

Ygrane knew that her daughter would not condone a
baptism, even though the soul within Mordred had been a

Christian soul when it had hved as Morgeu's father, Gorlois.

To assuage her own sense of responsibility for the child's spiritual
identity, she went to the war counsel chamber to find the Graal,
by which she would bless the child. But the Round Table stood
empty. At the center, where the Graal had been placed by the
king, no sign of it remained.

Immediately, Ygrane sought Merhn, and found him uncon-
scious in the king's bed. She laid a hand upon his bony breast
and felt great distances, the expanding shells of space, where hght
dissolved hke smoking candles into black reefs of sooty clouds.

The surgeon at her side shook his head and began mumbling
about the liver's flux.

Ygrane returned to Morgeu's tower suite and stood at the
slot window, looking out upon the world asunder. Forests
burned, turning the night scarlet. Armies clashed, and screams
rose on the black wind into the starless night. The Graal was
gone, and though inquiries had not yet begun, she already
sensed that the sacred vessel had been removed by no thieves
but a wider agency than mortals. She thought back across the
many forewinters to that Christmas when the mysterious Sisters
of Arimathea — the Nine Queens — had delivered the Graal to
her and Uther. And she felt old in her bones.

Night Wearing a Helmet

Severus Syrax recognized victory in the confident, broad stride
of Gorthyn as the scar-faced man entered the commanders'

pavilion tent, helmet under his arm, bloodied hand clutching
the sheathed sword at his thigh. 'The tyrant is crushed,' the
magister militum greeted him. 'That is what you've come to
report, yes, Gorthyn? We've seen it already.' His broadly
smiling face looked beyond the brigand king, out the lifted
awning to the red night. Flames flickered in the black silver
of the River Amnis far below. 'From up here, we saw it all.

The tyrant's foohsh charge into the forest. The entrapment and
destruction of his company. His warlords' armies shattered by
your legions. Behold our glory!'

Cold Kitchen burned, and on the river bluffs above it

Camelot's pale walls reflected the flames hke the bloody face
of night wearing a helmet crested with stars and smoke. 'By
morning, I will have Arthor's head on a pike — and his royal
chaplet upon my head.'

'Your head?' Count Platorius queried from the fleece-
draped chair where he sat watching the warsmoke caress the
stars. He looked meaningfully to Syrax. 'Did I not foretell this
avarice?'

'Avarice?' Gorthyn slung his head forward, black-whiskered
jaw tight as he glared at the magister militum. 'I've won this title for myself. You have your wealth. This weasel has his noble
lineage. I want mine. As of this night, I am high king.'

'Of course, Gorthyn.' The radiance of Severus Syrax did not
dim before the dark, hostile countenance. 'I am pleased to call
you sire. Under your protection, my trade affiliations will make
you a wealthy king and this island a kingdom of abundance.'

'Syrax!' The count rose with an inflamed expression and a
rebuke upon his tense hps that was never spoken.

In a blurred motion, Gorthyn drew his sword and passed
the grimy blade through Platorius's neck and between his
vertebrae, lifting the head from his shoulders. Arterial blood
splashed against the tent canvas, and the body crashed onto the
chair, the lopped head fallen upside down in its lap, the eyes
in their dark pouches staring with dismay.

Syrax's smile curdled with horror.

'Fear not, magister militum.' Gorthyn sheathed his gory
sword. 'This king finds favor with you. Together we will
make Britain a paradise.'

'Yes, yes — of a certainty.' Syrax nodded vigorously. 'Of
course, we shall need to reward our Fo'ederatus allies.'

Gorthyn stepped over to the map easels and smiled at their
scribbled topographies. 'There is plenty of land for all of them —
the Jutes, Angles, Saxons — even the Picts and Scotii. Alas, these
pagans have no love of the farm, the vineyard, or the orchard.

They won't tend cattle or crawl into holes in the earth to extract
ores. But then, we have the Britons and the Celts to do that
now, don't we? I beheve King "Wesc will be delighted with
this peace.'

Severus Syrax found his smile again. 'Britain will be a most
peaceable kingdoni when you wear the gold chaplet — she.'

Walk the Distance

Blood-slaked, Arthor and Bedevere stalked on foot through
the cinderous waste of the burned forest. Smoky rays of dawn
illuminated sprawled, legstiff horses and drifts of tangled corpses.

The king had lost his helmet sometime during the dark predawn
hours when the storm troops charged Camelot. He and his
warriors had beaten them back into the smoldering forest and
down the gorge slopes of the Amnis, only to be set upon by
the combined forces of Syrax and Platorius.

Arthor leaned on his shield and gawked about at the
new-slain dead. He saw no sign of his other warriors. They
had careened in wild combat into the darkness, and with
the coming of day found themselves far from their king,
engaged in strenuous battles for their own survival. The armed
figures that slouched out of the steaming haze were a mixed
squadron of hostile warriors — Britons in chain-mail tunics on
raw-looking horses with wild eyes, accompanied by invaders
in breeks fashioned out of human skin and belts woven from
human hair and decorated with human jawbones.

'This way, sire!' Bedevere grabbed the king's arm and pulled
him toward a charred grove. 'We'll elude them there.'

'I'll not elude them!' Arthor rasped and shook free of

Bedevere's grasp. 'I'll not flee in my own kingdom!'

He lunged and brought Excahbur down on the skull of the
nearest horse, felling it with one blow and goring the rider as
he spilled forward. With a hoarse cry, Arthor spun among the
barbarous company that charged him. Bearded and with teeth
bared hke feral dogs, the Wolf Warriors swung their axes, and
the helmeted Britons thrust with their heavy swords, all eager for
the prize of the tyrant's head and the glory that went with it.

Bedevere slashed with his crimson scimitar, his back pressed
to the king's. Together, they held the fdthy, brutal lot at bay.

Through the golden haze, more warriors assembled, drawn by
the excited shouts and whistles of the warband that had found
the king. Soon a crowd milled among the burnt trunks and
trampled shrubs of ash, yelling for blood.

Boldly, Wolf Warriors leaped in for the kill, their scapulars
of human teeth and shriveled human ears jumping about their
throats as they swung strenuously with their axes. Excalibur and
the scimitar flashed and glinted, and the brave ones fell, choking
on their own blood. It was a craven one, an archer on a scorched
knoll, who shot the arrow that pierced the king's thigh.

As Arthor fell, the grisly warriors surged forward. Bedevere's
scimitar dropped two in one stroke and repelled the others.

'Lean on me, sire!' He wedged his armless shoulder under the
king's arm and tried to bolster him upright. 'Lean on me and
we will walk the distance to the grove.'

'I will not retreat!' Arthor gnashed, lurching upright, tears
of pain and anguish running down his smudged cheeks. Another
arrow clanged offhis shield, and he raised Excalibur and shouted,

'For God and Britain!'

The Terrible Victory

The king's cry lost itself among the rabid yells and war-shouts
of his assailants, and he heard nothing of Bors Bona's army
until they crashed through the scalded trees and trampled
the furious wall of men around him. Bedevere held Arthor
down, protecting him with his shield from the stray arrows
of the warlord's bowmen. 'God has truly heard your cry, sire!'

Bedevere's blood-freckled face grinned. 'We are saved!'

The mounted archers at first did not recognize Arthor,
and Bedevere stood up and cried, 'Stand fast! Your king is
wounded!'

Plastered in mud, Bedevere and the arrow-struck man at
his feet appeared to be two more of the enemy, and the
chargers stampeded toward them, crushing Saxons and rebel

Britons under hoof. Bedevere waved his arms to no avail. Then

Arthor lurched to one knee and lifted Excalibur over his head.

The sudden arrival of these soldiers come to crush his enemies
lifted him above his pain, and he staggered upright, rocking to
his feet, Excalibur pointing to heaven.

'Britain!' he shouted. 'Britain!' His body filled with joy so
fully at God's answer to his prayers that he would have been
glad to be struck by these men, glad even to be struck dead.

He stood tall before the onslaught of heaving hones, pouring
all his strength into his cry, 'Britain!'

'The king!' a mounted archer yelled and seized the reins of
the rushing steed beside him. The muddy forehooves churned
in the air a hand's breadth from Bedevere's proud face.

Warhorses reared backward as their riders caught sight of

Excahbur and the shout rose louder with more strong voices
joining, 'The king! The king!'

The nearest horsemen leaped from their steeds and knelt
before Arthor. He lowered Excalibur, and Bedevere eased him
to the ground, to the very bottom of the cliff of mercy. And
there the king lay, smiling up at the clouds that carried away
the souls of the dead, his heart jumping inside him. He had
lived to see Britain saved. The words that the soldiers spoke
excitedly to him cleansed all the last stains of fear from him:

Bors Bona had arrived. The f i e r c e warlord of the north had
declared his allegiance to Arthor before all his men and had
won their fealty to the king, to the last man.

Britain was saved, and suddenly Arthor lay in the mud out-
side the house of his hfe. He could have died happily then. All
that he wanted as king, he now possessed: the allegiance of every
powerful British warlord and every Celtic chieftain - all united
to repel the invaders and to preserve for Britain the sanctity of
peace and the hope of prosperity for her own people.

A surgeon was summoned, and the king laughed tearfully
through the pain as they cut the shaft from his thigh, laughed
with joy for the dead from his ranks, who had sacrificed
everything and won victory for the hving ones they loved.

He laughed for his native land. And as his laughter spun out
to tears of relief, pain swarmed in and jolted him unconscious.

Bedevere laid Excalibur along his side, and he was carried on a
htter to the surgeon's wagon and escorted out of the scorched
forest to Camelot.

When he woke, Ygrane and Bedevere sat beside him where
he lay upon a ticking of swansdown in the sunlight of the
citadel's central garden. Ygrane had ordered him brought there
so that he would not wake beside the Round Table to find
the Graal gone or come around in his own bedchamber and
learn that Merhn lingered in a coma. She had dressed her son's
wounds herself and cleansed him with her own bruised hands.

Reports from the field, scratched hurriedly onto parchment,
lay upon the garden sundial in a heap of small scrolls. Bedevere
had read them all as they came in and, before the king could
speak, happily announced, 'Bors Bona offers his pledge to

Arthor, high king of Britain. He regrets not offering his fealty
sooner, but apparendy sorcery bedeviled him in Londinium and
the weather stalled him south of Greta Bridge.'

'The commanders . . .'

'All are alive, sire.' Bedevere held up parchments from each
of them. 'Kyner, Cei, and Lot are in the field with Bors. Marcus
patrols the Amnis, blocking the enemy's escape by river. And

Urien scours the hills north of Camelot, routing the adversaries
who have fled there.'

'The Foederatus legions — the Wolf Warriors — there are so
many . . .'

'We have learned that there were three legions - and not
enough have survived our batde with them to pose a threat to

Bors,' Bedevere rephed and then calmly related the details of
their terrible victory.

Bors Bona's army had crossed the River Amnis at Cold

Kitchen and swept into the burned forest. His mounted archers
had sent the battle-weary foot soldiers of Syrax and Platorius
fleeing, and his lancers had broken the already damaged

Foederatus legions into smaller units that his troopers swarmed
over. Bors Bona himself, knowing his enemy, had crossed
farther downriver and, at midmorning, had met Severus Syrax
and Gorthyn Belgae on the highway hurrying south. With the
magister militum weeping and pleading profusely and Gorthyn
snarhng and cursing, the warlord had them hanged at the
roadside, both from the same bough, and gave strict orders
for their corpses to be left untouched save by ravens.

Down Near the World

Merlin plunged whimpering through the black abyss of infinite
space, through eternal night. Where among the endless aisles
of stars, among the empty vectors of the void — where was
the hidden sun that warmed the one tiny world where he had
known mercy? Where were the blue and silver weathers of the

Earth? Wrap me again in the wind - bless me with the murmurmous
rain — warm the black and dreamstrewn deeps of my brain with sunlight

— return me, oh please, return me to the wide Earth's keeping—

The hves of the dark that he had hved in his prehuman
existence haunted him — the hatred he had felt for these cold
meridians of outer space, the evil he had embodied out of rage
for the good of heaven that he had lost, the phantasmagoria of
terrors he had carried from world to world through this very
vacuum returned on him with vivid clarity. And he concluded
that he was a loss to God. She had embodied him in mortal form
on Her little planet, had given him a purpose in Her creation, a
destiny that would have redeemed his murderous past, and he
had betrayed Her. He had arrogated to himself Her powers, as
if he were Her unique agent instead of what he really was —
a simple tool She had reclaimed from the hghtless warehouses
of Hades.

The Nine Queens had tried to warn him. He had stolen a
soul. They had tried to warn him to return it. He would have
killed that incest child if he had not been stopped by the boy

- halted not even by a full-formed man, but by a child, and
his charge, the boy he was supposed to guide to Her purpose
and in whom he was responsible for instilling faith in a justice
greater than the ken of mortals. He had failed. He understood
that now as he hurtled through the bhnd depths. He had failed
miserably, for he had behaved again as a demon, had used his
powers to assert his will, to fulfill his animosities. He had failed,
because he had met evil with evil.

Merhn accepted his infamy and stopped whimpering. He
knew he deserved his calamitous fate, and he gave himself to
his suffering and to the fullness of time.

At that moment, a star glinted brighter. He saw then, it was
not a star. It was a chalice of chrome laced with gold. The Holy

Graal floated before him in space. It retreated ahead of him as
he plunged through darkness toward a brightening star, an orb
of yellow refulgence among the tarnished stars - and there! -
the blue crescent of the Earth!

The Graal fell toward the blue planet, and he followed,
swollen with rehef and joy, swearing aloud in his mind, again
and again, that he would never forget the lesson in humility
and devotion that he had learned on his dark journey. Down
near the world, the Graal vanished. Understanding flexed in
him. The Fire Lords had removed the sacred chalice from the
king's citadel, for this vessel belonged in the company of those
joined by the sharing of bread, not the sharing of enemies.

Merhn grasped the import of this and the certainty of how
to quickly retrieve the Graal. He fell to earth laughing with
joy, eager to share this bright knowledge with his king.

Mother Mary, all is well. All is well at last! The kingdom is secure
for now. Our enemies are broken. And those many who have died
to defend our land, both pagan and Christian alike, are surely
beloved of our Father. What they have won with their blood I
will safeguard with my life and my watchful soul. Now, in this
enormous flowering of hope, we cherish the chance to create an order
of law and mercy, whose memory will endure the thousand years
of darkness that Merlin predicts. And what we do this day and
in the days to come, that is a fable yet to be tdld, legends ours
to shape, to be remembered when our children shall wake from their
millennial sleep.

Lips of the Moon

At the massive open gate to Camelot, guardsmen halted the
wagon with the strange dwarf bedecked in tatterdemalion
parody of a king's soldier, a frisky monkey at his humped
shoulder. As he began to explain himself, loud cheers resounded
from the bailey, and the guards lifted their lances in salute. The
dwarf stood on tiptoe atop the riding board and saw the bent
top of Merhn's conical hat moving among the jubilant crowd
of the castle's outer ward.

The wizard had revived from his coma. In the company of

King Arthor, who supported his wounded leg with a crutch,
and the king's seven commanders, Merhn marched out of the
casde onto the battle plains. The beautiful sable horses from the
dux Arabiae waited for them. Too delicate for battle, these proud
horses were ideal for the swift journey Merlin had in mind. The
victorious party would mount these fleet stallions and the wizard
would guide them toward the secret place where the Fire Lords
had dehvered the Holy Graal for safe keeping.

Dagonet leaped up and down, waving his arms, until Merhn
noticed him and budged through the crowd to the dray cart.

'Welcome, Dagonet!' The wizard clapped a congratulatory hand
upon the dwarfs shoulder, and Lord Monkey startled and clung
to Dagonet's head. 'You did well in the service of the king -
very well indeed — and you shall be rewarded. The position of
royal exchequer is yours. With that tide of high station comes
a generous remuneration and land holdings. Henceforth, you
shall be Lord Dagonet!'

'But look at me, Merhn!' Dagonet smacked his open
hands against his chest. 'I am ath I wath. I've awived where

I began!'

What does that matter, Lord Dagonet?' Merhn gripped
both of his shoulders. 'You are a man of station, as I promised
you would be. That will surely impress Aidan.'

'But not hith daughter!' Dagonet seized Merlin's robe.

'Pleath, Merlin! I therved you well - in Wecth Mundi and
on the quetht for the king'th wealth. Don't leave me like
thith! Give me back my phythical beauty before Euffathia
seeth me.'

A dark shadow clouded the wizard's long face. 'Dagonet,
you know not what you ask of me.' He glanced over his
shoulder and saw that the king and his men were still engaged
in greeting the happy crowd of soldiers and their families. 'I
have just returned from a great journey myself to find that our

Holy Graal is missing. Without it, our kingdom is just a military
confederacy with no spiritual center. I am on my way now to
guide the king and his men to where the angels have hidden
the Graal.' He squeezed the dwarfs shoulders urgently. 'You
must understand. My powers are hmited. If I use this magic to
restore you to the physical stature that the Fire Lord imparted
to you, I will lose my reckoning of the Graal's location forever.

You understand, Dagonet.'

The dwarf nodded slowly. 'Of courth. The good of the
kingdom ith at thtake — and that ith gweater than my dethire
for mythelf.'

'Good!' Merlin smiled benevolendy. 'I knew you would
understand, for you are a virtuous man. Beauty, after all, is
within.' He turned to go — and stopped abruptly. The air had
gone utterly still and silent. The sun above gazed down like a
large friend, the fleecy clouds around it motionless and birds on
the wing unmoving in midair.

The wizard spun about. No one was moving. • In the
gateway, the large crowd around the king stood locked in
their various attitudes of joy and admiration, their gesticulations
paralyzed, their faces flawlessly immobile, mouths open, eyes
unblinking. Merhn walked around Dagonet and touched Lord

Monkey. They felt cold as sculptured ice. Not even a hair of
the monkey's fur would budge. Time had stopped.

Sick fear enclosed him. He was certain that if he looked
straight upward he would see a diadem of night bejeweled with
stars and the hmidess depths of black space. A coldness in his
heart instructed him: Into darkness he had been delivered for
using his magical power with the arrogance of a demon. They
were coming for him again, the Fire Lords who had helped

Saint Optima fit him into a human body. They were coming
because humanity did not properly fit him. He was a demon,
doomed to peregrinate in darkness.

'No!' he shouted, and his cry echoed hke a clumsy spirit,
tripping over everything as it fled from him, unable to get away:

no — no — no — no . . .

'I'm doing it again, aren't I?' He looked with stricken alarm
at the dwarf, who had lifted a perplexed frown toward him.

Time erupted around him, loud with laughter and boisterous
voices from the crowd in the wide gateway. Birds flashed, clouds
raveled.

Merlin shrunk visibly under the shadow of his wide-
brimmed hat and spoke with a voice blasted almost to silence.

'I'm using my power like a godling instead of hke a man.' He put
both bony hands to his face and shook his head, stunned by the
enormity of the task that God had set for him. 'How? How can
we possibly succeed if I am to tend to every one of Your mortal
creatures that comes to me?' He turned his clasped face to the
heavens, a howl in his wild eyes. 'How?' Then, with a huge sigh,
reheved to see the infinite heavens blue and lively with birds, he
accepted his fate. His hands fell away from his hollow cheeks,
and he smiled wearily at Dagonet. 'Ah, how, how, how — that
is not for me to know, is it, my precious friend?'

'I don't underthtand.'

'Nor do I, dear Dagonet. Nor do I.' Merhn pointed beyond
the gate of the citadel to where the five-day-old moon smiled
above the scorched timbers of the forest. 'Go wait for me there,
faithful servant, beneath the hps of the moon. I will meet you
shortly after I have gathered the implements I need, and you
shall be made beautiful once again.'

How Old the World Is

When King Arthor and his commanders finally emerged from

Camelot, a star burned in the charred depths of the forest.

Moments later, Merhn and a tall, strikingly handsome man
emerged from the cinderland, a monkey prancing wildly around
them. Bors whispered to the king, and Arthor summoned Chief

Aidan from the crowd in the bailey.

'Here is the- man your daughter loves,' the king announced
as Dagonet, in rags hke clotted cobwebs, knelt before him.

'Merhn has informed me of the arduous quest he completed
to fund our treasury. Thanks to him, we have the resources
now to rebuild Cold Kitchen and to help to pay for the damages
wreaked by Severus Syrax. He is a noble man, our Dagonet, and

I decree him our new exchequer. Will you have him for your
son-in-law?'

Merlin stepped away from the giddy crowd, exhausted by
the magical effort that had transformed Dagonet. He wandered
off toward where the corpse wagons sorted the dead. Priests and
druids and the families of the missing combed the open fields
and the incinerated forest searching for the remains of the king's
fallen. Ravens and dogs searched as well, less discriminately.

Sitting on a seared stump, the wizard contemplated what
he had done. He felt disengaged from himself. A feverish
chill occupied the vacant place in him where but minutes
before he had possessed the knowledge of the Graal. The holy
vessel was lost now, secure in some secret sanctuary, he knew
not where.

The intelligence of the wind brought him news of the
cooking fires of the living and of the journey of the dead into
the mineral kingdoms. The day was waning and soon he should
have to inform the king that he had been mistaken about his
certainty of the Graal's location. He watched an old woman
cutting the long golden hah from the head of a dead Saxon,
hair to be sold for wigs in the market towns of the south.

An angel came walking through the fire-blackened corridors
of the forest. The wizard sat up straighter. The silver face was
too bright for him to discern features, yet he sensed that this
was the Fire Lord who had watched over Dagonet and who had
occupied R e x Mundi with them. The angel sat beside Merhn
on the stump, and the wizard's feverish chill vanished.

'I am glad you have come,' Merlin whispered, filled with a
beauty delivered entirely over to him. 'Yet, I am surprised. Y o u

Fire Lords are suffering — burning. I remember how it was. And

I know that your numbers are stretched thin across creation, all
of you working as hard as you can to hold together your fragile
assembhes — the complex organisms and societies you have
fashioned to honor Her. Oh, yes, I haven't forgotten. What
you do is more than just honor. Y o u work so hard, you endure
such painful burning out here in the cold, because you believe
there is a way back. Y o u beheve that the light of heaven that
has frozen to matter out here in space can be used to construct
machines for perceiving Her. The human brain is one of those
machines, yes?'

The angel rose and walked off, leaving no footprints in the
burnt grass. But a scent, like a heap of flowers, cut through the
corpse stench, and the feeling of beauty that he had imparted
to Merhn hngered.

The wizard nodded like the doddering old man he appeared
to be. 'I did right to give beauty to Dagonet after having taken so
much from him. That's what you came to tell me. Y o u are kind,
but you need not have troubled. Y o u reminded me strongly
enough in the darkness why God has put me here. And I have
not forgotten how old the world is — or why you built it.'

In the Garden of the Heart

Dagonet, tall and strikingly handsome as a Greek marble come
to life, accepted the king's gratitude and Aidan's proud bless-
ing, and strode toward the massive gate of Camelot, looking
for Eufrasia. His entire body tingled with the remembrance
of lightning, of the magical power that minutes before had
transformed him. Even Lord Monkey, perched alertly upon
his shoulder, his fur fluffed, eyes sparkling, smelled clean as
thunder.

Amazed by what the wizard had accomplished, Dagonet
paused among the ranks of yews beside the mammoth pylon
of the citadel and looked back, hoping to catch Merlin's eye
and salute him. But the wizard stood engaged in a somber
discussion with the king and his warriors. Merhn's big hands
turned palms upward, offering ignorance. The king and his
men shared disconcerted looks, and those atop their sable horses
began to dismount.

Dagonet determined he would find out later what troubled
them. For now, he had to locate Euffasia and discover for
himself if his quest for the king offered the one treasure he
desired above all others. He crossed the busy bailey, sidestepping
bustling market-workers conveying barrows of vegetables and
sacks of milled grain to the cookhouse for that day's feast. The
outer ward thrived with soldiers from the barracks, who were
airing their wounds in the morning sun, cleaning their weapons,
talking, some sullenly, others excitedly, about the batde they had
survived.

Aidan had directed him to the inner ward and Lot's clois-
tered wing of the casde, where Arthor's pagan Celts lived when
in Camelot. Children frolicked about the Maypole the druids
had erected in the grassy courtyard for their sun ceremonies,
and women sat on setdes in the cool shadows of the colonnade,
chatting and stitching torn buckskins. A cypress garden opened
behind the yard's chuckling marble fountain, its flower-banked
rivulets fed by the run-off. Eufrasia, in a saffron gown, her flaxen
hair braided intricately down her long back, sat on a mossy
boulder, watching small birds splashing in a rill.

Lord Monkey leaped among the curtains of a willow to
explore its shaggy depths, and its excited chitterings caught

Eufrasia's attention. When she saw Dagonet, she rose, and a
blush ht her cheeks. Already she knew, looking from inside her
soul, she could never get close enough - there was no such thing
as enough, not with this man. And as he came to her, she saw
by the soft hght in his eyes and his pupils widening, opening his
deepest self to her, that he had already taken her into himself.

Gaze by gaze, without words, they knew that they had
started on their journey together to that place beyond all other
places, where even memory would remain limidessly alive and
awake and all that they would share, the whole blurred moment
of their hfetime together, an entire future, lay before them like
a beautiful recurrent dream.

Sky Deep as Heaven

Days later, when all the king's fallen had been identified and
properly buried and when the enemy dead were burned and

King Wesc's death poetry for his warriors recited over their
ashes, the coronation of King Arthor jammed the wards of

Camelot. In the central courtyard, a platform stood draped
in the red and white banners of the king, and Arthor sat at
its center upon an oaken throne carved elaborately with the
devices of the dragon and the unicorn from his hneage.

The bells of Camelot rang incessantly that day and fell silent
only for the spoken invocation and the recitation of the king's
ascendancy. Flanked by his commanders and attended by his
mother and by the wizard Merhn, Arthor received the blessing
of the archbishop, who read aloud the official recognition
from Pope Gelasius of Arthor's unchallenged title as high king
of Britain.

After anointing the king's chaplet and placing it upon his
head, the archbishop conducted Mass with Arthor, and the
priests distributed the Eucharist among the crowd. The Celtic
hieros and his green-robed druids also knelt to receive the
sanctified bread of Yesu, the all-heal, and to drink of the
vine that climbs to the hght. Urien as well as Lot and his
sons, Gawain and Gareth, knelt with them and afterward led
the Celtic Sundance in honor of the king. Only Morgeu was
absent, refusing to abide the presence of Merhn. Yet, in honor
of her brother, whose love had spared her child Mordred, she
draped the king's red eagle from the windows of her suite and
stood upon the open balcony of her tower with her infant in
her arms when the archbishop placed the anointed chaplet upon

Arthor's head.

After the king and his commanders had stepped down
from the platform and mounted their steeds to parade through

Camelot and lead the populace on a celebratory march around
the citadel, Ygrane blessed them as she had promised she would
do. But instead of holding aloft the Graal as she had intended,
she spread wide her white-robed arms and said loudly to her
son and his men, Y o u are the hope of Britain. Your blood
will be the tears of generations. Gifts of God, you have come
to be given. And what you give will lead us who follow you*
to the thankful days. Hold fast, brave warriors, to your faith
in God and to each other. Hold fast against the ancient order
of might and brutality. You are protectors of the meek. Your
strength champions mercy and love, and your bravery defends
a perilous order. Love well, and there is no end to how loved
you shall be.'

Urien, naked but for white kid-leather boots, fawnskin
thong, and a sword strapped to his back led the parade with
his salt-blond hair streaming free in the spring breezes. Lot
and his two sons followed, dressed as sparely, in the manner
of the old Celts who hved to feel again the goodness of the
day after the fierce battle. Marcus, blond and bearded as a

Saxon, rode proudly after them, waving the king's white
banner emblazoned with the red eagle. Bors Bona, his squat
frame gleaming in polished breastplate and helmet, accepted
the boisterous gratitude of the throng with a raised sword.

Kyner and Cei came next in their white tunics marked by
red crosses, bearing a chi-rho banner between them. Bedevere
pranced afterward in full battle regalia, frequently turning to
keep a protective eye upon the king, who rode laughing hke
a boy among the adulate throng, arms upraised victoriously,
happy face hfted to a blue sky deep as heaven.

A Dawn of Butterflies

Weeks later, on the anniversary of the summer day when he
had drawn the sword Excalibur from the stone, King Arthor
left Camelot in the dark before dawn. Alone, with Bedevere
a distant shadow, he limped across the champaign, through the
grassy upland fields, to the woods behind the citadel. He wanted
to be alone before this day's festivities began. He needed time
to reflect on what the coming day meant for him.

A full year had passed since he had known the freedom
of anonymity. After the battles and the carnage, the heaviest
burden for him as king was renown. No one saw him as a
man anymore. He was the agency of their ambitions and the
claimant of their loyalties. There was no one with whom he
could speak simply as a man. And there was surely no woman
who could accept him simply as a man. That was the weight
of his hfe's truth.

The lust that, the year before, had made him vulnerable
to Morgeu's seduction added its weight to this truth. He felt
desire. The whole world seemed to carry that desire. Standing
at last on the wooded bluff above a cataract spilling from the
mountains into the river, the boulders in the dark below looking
as though whitewashed with milk, he felt aghast at the desire of
the stream for the sea. That was a power no one could resist,
not even a king. He would have to find a woman — his woman.

That was his personal quest, as urgent and necessary as the river's
journey.

But there was another mission that summoned him. The

Graal had not been found, though every cranny of the citadel
had been searched. Merhn claimed the angels had spirited it
away. The wizard wanted him to conduct a search for it
across the kingdom. Shrouded by epics and sacred legends, the
chalice offered his warriors a purpose other than war, Merhn
claimed. It united them to an ambition greater than combat. But

Arthor needed his commanders for more quotidian services —
patrols against the ever-encroaching invaders, protection of the
highways and outlying villas from brigands, and maintenance of
municipal properties: bridges, dams, harbors, and the decaying
roadways. So much work.

He sat down and counted clouds, melon-pink and apricot
in the rising hght. The wound in his thigh throbbed. It had not
healed cleanly, despite the best ministrations of his surgeons.

Merhn feared it was a supernatural wound, his kingship maimed
by the deaths of the many Britons who had died opposed to
him. The Graal would heal that regal injury, the wizard seemed
certain. The Graal — the Graal . . .

Mingled bells rang upward from the lower meadows,
announcing the day - chapel matins, shepherds driving their
flocks to graze, gooseghis tolling for their birds. In the widening
dawn, he looked down on the towers of Camelot, misty fields,
the scarred forest, and the scaffolded rooftops of Cold Kitchen
still under repair. The sight pressed his heart with emotion. This
was the center of his kingdom—the glory he served. Here was the
secret of himself that he knew led to a happy death: the chill in
the air, the thatched roofs, plumes of smoke from hearth fires, a
dog by the gate, hedgerows at the end of the lane, blackthorns
and elms, and slopes of half-awakened flowers.

Arthor sat still as the lustrous sun cleared the hills and stirred
the mists in the dells to move hke invisible horses. A dawn of
butterflies climbed down the high bluffs with the ruddy sunlight.

Across the ashes and cinders of the fields, where the blood of the
slain had soaked the land, acres of flowers bloomed: Lilacs lifted
their pale torches, gold trumpets of daffodils shone among pink
morning glories, blue gentians trembled into the unravehng
wind. And everywhere over the blossoms, butterflies josded,
flitting with busy love hke souls released from the night, free
from pain and terror, free at last to thrive on beauty and hght.