Merlin had always taken great care that his name and birth right were well hidden from the Forces of the Dark. However this knowledge worked both ways for, in spite of all his efforts, Merlin had been unable to discover the Dark Lord’s own true name although he now had an inkling of what it might be.
The boy enchanter had not revealed this knowledge to his friends. If he was wrong and the incorrect name was used as a challenge to the Dark Lord’s enchantment it would inevitably lead to a weakening of the boy’s power to confront the Dark Lord and his Dark Magic. For the time being Merlin kept this knowledge to himself.
“Very wise,” was Merlin’s reply to the rather smelly ghoul that had stood so bravely and resolutely by his side on many occasions, even though bits of Grim seemed to be perpetually about to fall off. That was only to be expected, the boy enchanter knew, when you were well over two hundred years old.
“Grim thinks so,” Grim agreed quickly.
“Kraak does not understand why the Raven Boy puts up with Uther Pendragon.”
It was Kraak, the King of the Raven Kind who spoke. “The Raven Kind most certainly would not.”
Kraak was the fearless leader of the magical and enchanted ravens who had fought to protect Avalon on many occasions.
It was Merlin’s Elder god father who had granted speech to the Raven Kind and it was a gift that the King of the Raven Kind would always respect, although his allegiance was very much more to the Bull Slayer’s son rather than to the Bull Slayer himself.
Merlin knew that it was a question that he had been asked many times but it was not right that he should give the answer that only he and his great father knew.
He had seen the answer to this question in one of his visions in the Crystal Cave when, for a brief instance, the Veil of Time had been torn aside and he had been given a glimpse of the Future.
This knowledge he knew, without Mithras Invictus telling him, had to be kept secret and secure. Should any hint of the part that King Uther Pendragon was to play in the securing of Avalon’s Future and the Golden Age that was to follow become known to the Forces of the Dark then the very existence of Camelot, Avalon and the whole of Britannia would be put even more at risk.
“Camelot needs him, Kraak,” Merlin knew that although Kraak would accept what he was told that he owed the King of the Raven Kind some kind of an explanation. “At the moment there is no one else of the royal blood to rule. The Future needs him – even if I don’t.”
“King Uther Pendragon is going to do something great for Camelot?” The disbelief could be heard in Galahad’s voice.
“Uther wouldn’t know anything ‘great’ if it jumped up and slapped him in the face,” was the boy enchanter’s rather bleak reply.
“Then what?”
All this was getting Galahad rather confused – to say the least.
“I don’t see it clearly,” Merlin admitted for the Future held many paths that crossed one another and it was difficult, even for him, to see clearly through the Veil of Time. “But somehow the mightiest warrior, the Greatest Battle King, that Camelot, Avalon and Britannia will ever see will come from Uther Pendragon. And this Battle King could well be the greatest warrior of all time.”
“Greater than Achilles?” Galahad asked almost in disbelief. He remembered only too well how Merlin had conjured the shade of that mighty fighter of the Trojan Wars to help him regain the skills that had, for a time, been lost to him.
Galahad also remembered that Achilles was the only one of the magically conjured ‘Spirit Warriors’ that he had been unable to defeat.
“I believe that he will be greater than Achilles,” Merlin said. “Achilles was a heroic warrior but he was pretty thick.”
“What will be this warrior’s name?” Galahad asked for he still found it hard to believe that there could be a better fighter than the ‘mighty’ Achilles.
“I don’t know that yet,” Merlin told his friend. “But he will be the ‘Once and Future King’ who was predicted before the Beginning of Time. His name will echo across the centuries for he will never be forgotten.”
For a moment Kraak, Galahad and Grim were silent for they were more than aware that what Merlin had just spoken were the True Words of Prophecy
“And the ‘Once and Future King’ will be King Uther Pendragon’s son?” It was Galahad who broke the silence as he struggled to understand what he had just been told.
“Yes,” Merlin agreed and there was still the Light of Prophecy in his eyes. “But he will be born in Magic and he will be Avalon’s son rather than Uther Pendragon’s.”
“But mighty king is not married,” Grim pointed out, and for a moment all four of them were silent as they remembered the gentle and beautiful Queen Alona that they and all of Camelot had loved so much.
“Queen Alona died, if you remember?” Galahad said and regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.
“I’m not likely to forget, am I?” Merlin snapped back for he was only too aware that the queen, who he had liked very much, had died a terrible and painful death that had been brought about by his father, Mithras Invictus.
“Sorry,” Galahad was quick to apologise. “That was very stupid of me.”
“No,” Merlin told his friend. “I’m the one who should apologise, I’m in a black mood. Uther Pendragon always has this effect on me.”
“I’d noticed,” the boy warrior had to admit.
“I can’t seem to get it through to Uther that the Dark Lord is determined to invade Camelot and Avalon and that Camelot’s army will not stand a chance against the Dark Magic and the Army of the Dead.” The boy enchanter now spoke more in frustration than bitterness.
“I thought that the Army of the Dead couldn’t enter Avalon while you lived,” Galahad said.
Merlin, like his great father, was of the Old Magic and he had, with the help of the Raven Kind, the unicorns and other Mythical Beasts of Avalon been able to hold not only the Dark Lord at bay but also the Lords of Winter. Although Merlin would be the first to agree that Kraak, Galahad and even Grim had played no small part in this defence of Camelot.
“The Army of the Dead couldn’t enter Camelot,” Merlin’s face was dark with worry as he spoke to his friends. “But now that Uther has destroyed my father’s altars, I am not so sure. The Dark Lord seems to have grown in Power from his time in the Underworld.”
“How can we be sure?” Galahad asked for he could clearly hear the despair that was in Merlin’s voice.
“Well I’m not going to wait for the Dark Lord and his Army of the Dead to come banging on my door – that’s for sure.”
Galahad was relieved to see the determination that was flooding back into Merlin.
The boy warrior knew that, however formidable a foe the Dark Lord was, Merlin could be even more intimidating and there were times that the boy could be the very image of his father.
Galahad had seen how the boy enchanter’s normally dark eyes could turn to a deep shade of black and his face almost to stone.
It was not a good thing to be Merlin’s enemy when this change came upon the boy enchanter. Galahad knew that for certain.
“Which means?” Galahad asked.
“Which means that we need some help – some reinforcements,” Merlin told him.
“Draago, Stormrider and Firewing will always fight for you,” the boy warrior agreed remembering the many times that Draago the last of the Dragon Kind, Stormrider, the golden king of the Unicorns and Firewing the Griffin had come to Camelot and Avalon’s aid.
“I know,” Merlin said, “But we need something more against the Dark Lord.”
“Your father?”
Galahad was surprised for it was well known that the Bull Slayer had left Avalon never to return but then perhaps Merlin knew something that the rest of them didn’t know.
The boy enchanter was quick to put an end to that suggestion, “I’ve no idea where my father is these days,” he admitted. “I don’t think that he is even in this wo
rld. I was thinking of Herne.”
That certainly stunned Galahad. The boy warrior had never met Herne but he had heard many disturbing tales of this being who was rumoured to be pretty much a demi-god and more than a little insane.
“Herne the Hunter?” Galahad said to make sure that they were both talking about the same Herne.
“Yes,” Merlin confirmed.
“But he’s not a god,” the boy warrior pointed out.
“He’s not far off being one,” was Merlin’s blunt reply.
“Herne is said to be half-mad,” Kraak put in.
Like Galahad the King of the Raven Kind was stunned that Merlin should consider involving Herne the Hunter in their struggle against the Dark Lord.
“He should be ideal then,” Merlin said.
“Grim is very scared of the Hunter,” Grim was the only one of them who had actually seen Herne the Hunter and it was not an encounter that the ghoul was particularly keen to repeat.
“Herne doesn’t care what he hunts only that he hunts and kills something,” Kraak added for he knew that when Herne the Hunter and his Hell Hounds hunted across the skies it was not good for any animal, bird or even human being to be in plain sight.
“Exactly,” Merlin said with some relish.
“How do we even find Herne?” Galahad wanted to know.
“Not ‘we’, Galahad,” the boy enchanter told his friend. “Just me. Herne will not speak with mortals.”
“But you’re…” Galahad began to say.
“…half mortal,” Merlin finished what he knew Galahad was going to say. “But the other half is god – and an Elder god at that. If Herne won’t speak with me then I’ll threaten him with my father. Even Herne the Hunter will obey the summons of the Bull Slayer.”
“But Mithras has left Avalon,” Kraak pointed out.
The raven was not a bit sure that summoning the half mad and increasingly unhinged Herne the Hunter was a good idea at all.
“I’m banking on Herne being too stupid to realise that,” was Merlin’s reply.
“And if not?” Like Kraak, Galahad did not think that this was a great idea at all.
“It could all get very interesting,” Merlin had to admit.
“How do you intend to speak with Herne, Merlin?” Galahad asked and it seemed a fair question to the boy. After all it was centuries since anyone living had seen the Hunter although he had often been heard on storm-driven nights as he rode across the dark-clouded sky with his pack of Hell Hounds.
“The Druids,” Merlin replied. “I will need to use Druids’ Stones. Gwydion will help me – he is forsworn.”
Galahad’s mind went back to the desperate battle that Merlin had fought alongside the Druids in confronting and eventually defeating the Lords of Winter and their Ice Warrior. It had been a seriously close thing and the Druid leader, the High Druid Thoran, had been slain in the victory.
Gwydion, the father of Myfanwy the Druid girl who had come to Avalon in search of help, had been elected as the new High Druid. He had promised that he and all the Druids would always come to Merlin’s side should the boy enchanter have need of them.
“What do you want us to do?” Galahad still didn’t think that it was a great idea to summon Herne the Hunter but, as always, he was loyal to his friend and would follow him into and through the Gates of Hell and beyond if called upon to do so.
“Tell Draago, Stormrider and Firewing that the Dark Lord and his Army of the Dead are coming, and Galahad….” Here Merlin fixed the boy warrior with a bleak look that Galahad knew only too well and which generally led to trouble for someone.
“Yes, Merlin?” Galahad asked.
“Sharpen your sword,” Merlin told his friend, “You’re going to need it!”
CHAPTER THREE
CASTLE DESPAIR
It came screeching out of the earth as if it was being born from the very rock that lay all around it.
This was Castle Despair, the lair of the Dark Lord, and it recreated itself in a different location every twenty-four hours.
Granite tore over granite as Castle Despair once more compelled itself into existence by the Force of Will of the Dark Lord.
This fire-driven Being was an imposing sight and was many times the height of any mortal man. His whole body ran with a flickering glow from the Fires that constantly ran over and around it and which originated, like their master, from the very depths of Hell itself.
Before the Dark Lord were two skeletal men who were sat on horse that were themselves only skeletons. These were the Dark Riders and they and their mounts had died many hundreds of years before.
They had been raised from their Long Sleep by the Dark Magic of the Dark Lord so that, once more, they might serve their Dark Master. Their true names were buried and long forgotten but they were now known as Mortus and Tregor and they had once been born into the World of Men as brothers.
Beside the Dark Lord was a bowl that was filled with blood and it was into this that the Dark Lord and his Servants of the Dead gazed. Here, by the Dark Magic, they could see the rolling meadows and gentle hills of Camelot and Avalon.
“The Old Magic is weakening, my Riders.”
There was more than a hint of triumph in the Dark Lord’s voice and its Force seemed to shake the very foundations of Castle Despair. “The Power of Mithras is retreating from Avalon. Their god has deserted them.”
The Dark Lord’s voice rose in pitch and fury as he gazed down on the land that he had coveted for so long and which, he knew, was now finally within his grasp.
“Why has the Elder god deserted them, Lord?”
It was Mortus who spoke. His voice was deep and grating for these were vocal chords that were dry and desiccated and which had not been used for many hundreds of years.
“I neither know, nor care, Mortus,” once again the Dark Lord’s voice rose in triumph. “Perhaps the Bull Slayer has grown weary of the World of Men for they are a tiresome race.
“Now the Army of the Dead can rise up from the Underworld and ravage and destroy Avalon?”
This time it was Tregor who spoke. In his time on Earth he had been a mighty ruler with abundant gifts of knowledge and learning. But with Great Knowledge can also come Great Corruption. He had become a tyrant whose very name brought fear and despair to all that heard it. After his death his palaces and monuments had been pulled down and destroyed for his people wished only to obliterate all memories of the man who had brought so much suffering and death to their land.
This they had achieved for now the shade of the once-great ruler sat a skeletal horse and had no memory of who or what he had once been.
All he knew now was that he had been reborn in the very Depths of Hell and that he must eternally serve the fire-writhen Being that he knew only as the Dark Lord.
“Not yet, Tregor.”
The Dark Lord’s voice rang out in anger and frustration. He had waited long for Camelot and Avalon to fall beneath his tyrannical reign and become an extension of Hell itself. “But our Time is near.”
The satisfaction could be heard in the Dark Lord’s voice for he truly believed that it would be only a short span before Camelot fell to the Forces of the Dark Magic and so would become part of his Hell on Earth.
“What of the Raven Boy?”
Once more Mortus’ dry voice spoke and it was little more than a whisper.
The Dark Rider was well aware of how the raven haired boy, who was somehow more than he should have been, had stood against the Master of the Underworld. Almost unbelievably that boy had defeated the Dread Lord whom all of the Underworld called ‘Master’.
“Ah, him.”
Now the Dark Lord’s voice was little more than a whisper itself but seemed to be all the more intimidating for that. “There is a score that I must settle with this Raven Boy. Too long has he stood in my way.”
The Dark Lord spoke the truth for there had been many times when the eleven year old boy enchanter had been all that stood between the Dark Lord and
Camelot and Avalon’s complete and utter destruction.
Even so there had been times when Merlin’s powers had not been enough. It was on these occasions that Merlin’s great father, the most powerful of the Elder gods had walked once more upon the Earth and had come to the aid of his son.
But now, as the Dark Lord had truthfully said, Mithras Invictus had abandoned the country that he had once loved so much.
Even the Elder god’s protective ring of altars had been pulled down by the dangerously unstable King of Camelot that was King Uther Pendragon. Now it was only the young boy that was Raven Boy who stood between the Dark Lord and Camelot and Avalon’s descent into the Underworld and All the Fires of Hell. The Dark Lord was well aware of this fact.
“Shall we now raise the Army of the Dead for you, Lord?”
As Tregor spoke there was a hint of the bloodstained tyrant that he had once been in his voice. He had been a Man of Blood and he would carry that stain upon his soul until the End of Time.
“Not yet,” the Dark Lord’s voice snapped out as a whiplash. “There is still something of the Old Magic in Avalon. It has been weakened with the destruction of the Bull Slayer’s altars – but it is still there.”
The Old Magic had long run through the whole of Avalon and Mithras Invictus had used it to enable the Mythical Beasts of Avalon to exist and even to speak. It had long defended the Land of Mists.
With the departure of the Elder god the enchantment was slipping away and soon would be no more. With this loss of the Old Magic there would be no dragons, unicorns, griffins or even ghouls in Avalon for they were all Magical Beasts and Beings created and sustained by the Old Magic.
Even the ravens would cease to speak and would be no more than black winged birds who uttered only a harsh and rasping cry.
“Can we enter Avalon while the Raven Boy lives?”
Tregor was well aware of how the Raven Boy had defended and saved Avalon in the Past. The boy had even freed Draago, the Last of the Dragon Kind, from the Dark Lord’s strongest enchantment.
Merlin and the Land of Mists: Book Five: The Battle for Avalon Page 2