The Mammoth Book of Merlin

by Mike Ashley

  The abbess paused.

  Gwendoloena reached out and grasped Myrddin’s hand firmly.

  “What happened to that innocent babe and his mother?” the girl demanded.

  “The mother wandered many weeks with that baby to the west until she came to the house of the steward to a wise teacher, one who still followed the old ways. She left the child wrapped in a piece of blanket on which that noble symbol of her ancestors was inscribed. It broke her heart to abandon him. But she knew that it was her destiny and his destiny that it be so. She left him and went forth into the world and joined a community of religieuses, where she prospered.”

  The Abbess Aldan raised her head and gazed into the eyes of Myrddin.

  “She often asked herself if the child prospered. And she came to know he did . . . His destiny is a great one and now she has no regrets that she had to do what she had to do.”

  Myrddin’s face showed a conflict of emotions as he realized the truth of his background. He used every effort of his training to control the tempest of emotion within him, knowing that the abbess’s manner precluded any familiarity. Her emotions were held in check by a lifetime of self-denial. Myrddin deflected his thoughts by asking:

  “And the West Saxons use this emblem on their battle banner to stress their victory over the Britons? The emblem of their defeated enemy?”

  “That is so.”

  “And the baby you speak of grew to manhood believing himself to be a Briton yet all the while base Saxon blood flowed in his veins?”

  “Hardly base. He was of the seed of Cerdic and of Saxon kings. There is some nobility in that. But even more, he is more his mother’s child. Do not our cousins, the Picts of the north, appoint our kings from the line of the mother? Their reasoning is that one may not necessarily know who a person’s father is, but one is always sure to know the mother. And the child’s mother’s line was Briton and noble. He was raised by the best intellects of the Britons and in him rests the hope of the Britons.”

  “But he is half Saxon,” Myrddin pointed out stubbornly.

  “By blood only. And blood is of little consequence. It spills and is diminished. The intellect is beyond blood for by intellect a man or woman may become anything they choose and transcend all man-made boundaries and prejudice. You are what you believe you are and what you are capable of doing.”

  Myrddin sat awhile in thought. Then, finally, he gave a long exhalation of his breath. He had matured a lot during these last few days. When he had left the house of the Venerable Fychan, he had thought he knew all there was to know in preparation for his life. What he had come to realize was his ignorance. He had learnt much recently but the more his self-knowledge increased the more his ignorance had unfolded. He was contrite as he realized what the Venerable Fychan had tried to warn him of. Well, one thing he had realized: the desire of knowledge, like the thirst for riches, ever increased with the acquisition of it.

  “It would make me happy, Mother Abbess, and it would ease my anxiety if you could continue to give sanctuary to Gwendoloena while I am away.”

  Gwendoloena turned in surprise.

  “Where are you going, Myrddin? I will come with you.”

  Myrddin turned to her and sadly shook his head.

  “Gwendoloena, I have come to love and need you as I do the air that I breathe. But I cannot marry yet for I have realized that I am not prepared. Hear me,” he continued quickly, as he saw the reaction in her face, “I do not mean to hurt you. I will return for you, that is certain. But first I must return beyond the western mountains to fulfil my quest for self-knowledge. For only when I have that self-knowledge will I be able to come to the maturity necessary for my purpose in life.”

  The girl was trying hard to understand.

  “What purpose do you speak of, Myrddin?”

  “There is a task I must perform. As I have said, I must find Artio again and set him on the path for his great destiny. I cannot do that unless I am capable of doing it.”

  The girl was puzzled.

  “Artio? What destiny, Myrddin? What is Artio’s destiny?”

  “His is the right to hold the sword called Caladfwlch, the sacred sword of gods and champions, and be acclaimed our High King. Only he can lead our people to shelter from the gathering Saxon storm. I have finally realized the goal of my own quest. And must prepare for that quest.”

  The Abbess Aldan smiled softly.

  “We shall take care of Gwendoloena. I know you shall return, my son, even as she knows it. And it shall be even as you say. Whenever the name of Artio is mentioned by future generations, then shall the name of Myrddin, his counsellor, also be spoken.”

  Myrddin reached forward and took the hands of the abbess in both of his.

  “Then I am contented with my destiny, mother . . .” he whispered in final acknowledgement. “I will spend a moment or two with Gwendoloena before I depart.”

  Then, as he was about to turn away, his mouth suddenly slackened and he stared at her in horror as a new realization came to him.

  “Tell me, if Cerdic was my true father then . . . then Cynric . . . ?”

  She met his troubled eyes and nodded slowly in sympathy.

  “Yes, my son. Cynric was your half-brother.”

  INFANTASM

  ROBERT HOLDSTOCK

  Robert Holdstock (b. 1948) first achieved recognition for his science fiction, especially the novels Eye Among the Blind (1976) and Earthwind (1977). At that time he was also producing a variety of fantasy novels under different pseudonyms, including the Berserker series as Chris Carlsen, some of the Raven the Swordsmistress series as Richard Kirk, and most interestingly the Night Hunter series of occult novels as Robert Faulcon. Then, in 1984, he achieved major recognition for Mythago Wood, a fascinating study of the Matter of Britain permeating through to today. The book shared the World Fantasy Award for best novel in 1985. He has since explored this concept further in Lavondyss (1988), “The Bone Forest” (1991), The Hollowing (1993), Merlin’s Wood (1994), Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn (1997) and Avilion (2009). He has also completed the Merlin Codex series of novels, Celtika (2001), The Iron Grail (2002) and The Broken Kings (2007). Holdstock doesn’t feel he’s finished with the character of Merlin yet; in fact, Merlin’s rather started to warm to him.

  It takes time and a great deal of concentration to fabricate even a single infantasm. It is always necessary to draw on time in the long-gone, and often essential to reach as far into the long-to-come as is possible, depending on the imaginary talents one wishes to give the child. It is not a process, then, that I initiate lightly, and when the Chief Dragon rounded me up from my forest dance and stated bluntly that he wished to talk to me about infantasm, I was more alarmed at the prospect of the magic he might require than irritated by the way his ruffians prodded me at spear-point back to the great fort.

  When the winding forest track left the tangle of wood behind and joined the old Roman road, I abandoned all thought of escape and trudged the smoothed stone between the snorting horses of my captors, huddled in my wool cape, aware that Uverian, as he pompously called himself (in reflection of the forgotten Legions, whose weapons he and his mercenaries still used) was watching me smugly as he rode behind me.

  Now that we were on the open path, I concerned myself quickly with how in the name of Mabon – locally, a powerful and perceptive deity to the ignorant fools who served, for bellyfuls of bread, meat and mead, the needs of the Chief Dragon – how in That One’s name Uverian had found me. I was certain that I had closed the forest around my shrine. I was certain that my dancing had been silent in this time, although the forest music, the thunder of the drums, might have echoed a thousand years behind me (or perhaps ahead of me?). But silent now, my grove quite scentless. Senseless! And yet the Dragon Bastard had spotted me, as an eagle spots the sudden tension of a leveret in its form and swoops to take the helpless hare.

  After abandoning my self-rebuke, I explained at great length to the amused and determined man on his s
leek, roan mare that infantasm was not a magic that could be simply summoned. I shall not concern you here with my argument, which mainly explained in as much tedious detail as I could summon from truth and lie the process of drawing the bones from the wood, the flesh from the wormy soil where a body lies undergoing decay, the skin from leaves, the bloom from flowers, the blood from water where a wounded man has bathed, the bowels and other internals from animals killed with stone – hares for their essence and spirit, of course, polecats for durability, boars for aggression, birds for many other things.

  “Whatever you need you shall have,” Uverian said sharply. “Now stop talking. My head is ringing with your whining.”

  Good! My head was ringing with apprehension.

  For what purpose, foul or cunning, could he wish the making of a child from another time?

  Instants after I had passed through the three gates of his fortress, my legs aching from the steepness of the winding road that led between the defensive walls, I was besieged by the infirm. Some of these had unhealed wounds, or breaks in bone, or the aches and pains of age, all curable if I so chose; but most were infirm of spirit. These ever-hopefuls, longing for marriage, for visions of the great God Llug (or lesser Mabon, Brigga and all the rest), or for successful quests for lost talismans (as if they’d be effective when found!), or for strength to their sword-arms against the raiders, reivers and neighbours who took arms against them, these were a blight to my life, a bane to my magic.

  They had all been told I would be fetched from the forest – a realization that further insulted my talent at disguise – and had gathered to line the road to the Dragon Bastard’s house, where the three shields of the clan hung in silent, mocking tribute to me (I had helped the man in the three deeds that had earned him the shields, but the shields reflected only the deeds of the man!)

  Uverian’s knights (I hardly dignify them with the name, but at least they were on horseback, and knew how to ride) pushed the crowds back to the inside walls of the fort and their ragged houses, where forges, bakeries and tanneries burned, crisped and stank the outer town. In the centre, among the tree shrines and stone sanctuaries, and next to the oak-branch cage that covered the well, Uverian’s house was a long, smokeless hall, divided several times by heavy woollen curtains, dyed in the colours of forgotten Rome.

  He had clawed up with his own hands the mosaic tiles of a Roman house, four days’ ride east of this fortification, and reassembled the horned face of that Roman deity on the hard floor in front of his chair. The chair was made from the marrowbones of elk, an odd allusion to a long-forgotten Warlord dynasty – all priests, warriors, skystones in circles and green-edge bronze – that I suspect I might have mentioned inadvertently to him:1 in any case, he had created and adopted the foul chair, with its marrowbone frame, its carved oak panels and duck-feather cushion, and rested there now, legs spread, britches loosened to ease his saddle bruising, belly hard and scarred and hideously gaping from his untied leather shirt.

  “I didn’t expect you to be so popular,” he said quietly, scratching his ragged beard, not a happy man, but watching me with interest rather than with the beetling scowl that usually meant he would soon get drunk and violent.

  His reference to my popularity was meant to be pointed, but in fact I had been surprised myself.

  The last time I had occupied this wind-swept, hilltop hell-hole I had failed to predict the attack by Gorlodubnus, the Bastard Blackwolf of the Dumnonii,2 who occupied land in the southern part of Albion, and whose precocious child-bride, Grainne, so haunted Uverian’s lustful dreams.

  Although the slaughter had been restricted to the death of two champions from each side, my failure had led me to expect to be arrow-shot rather than welcomed should I ever have returned.

  (What fools! To think that prediction is guaranteed. Otherwise, why would the world ever progress in any way other than round about and round about, all things singing, all things known? What fools!)

  However, now that I was welcomed outside, at least, there would be wealth to be made in my short stay, since there’s nothing quite like a charm, an insight and a breath of promise to bring out the hidden silver from these mountain idiots, and the vibrant, willing flesh of those idiots’ strong-limbed daughters.

  I had gone short of many pleasures in the last few years; it was time to catch up.

  And then, as I sat smugly (but expressionless) on the rough matting, facing the shattered mosaic of Bacchus and the slumped, indulgent form of the Chief Dragon, I remembered what I was here for. My heart shifted position and the movement was heavy.

  Infantasms.

  So hard to create!

  “Didn’t you once tell me,” Uverian said quietly, “that in your youth you fashioned a girl, pretty as a lark’s song, blushing pink as an apple, from the gathered petals of flowers?”

  I nodded casually; was the fool confusing the flower girl with an infantasm? I hadn’t created her myself, in fact, but had gathered the flowers for an older man, a charmer of little, though creative, talent, who had made the creature. This was so long ago that the sound of metal striking metal hadn’t yet begun to disturb the sleep of those who lived upon the land. Stone weapons are much duller, and very effective. I had often used flowers to create mannikins – for amusement – and gave them names and stories for each part of the world I was visiting, but such creatures have nothing but blushes and instincts, no mind to speak of. Rather like the child-thing Grainne, really.

  “Could you make me a lithe, lucky and lovable boy in the same way? Out of flowers, or twigs, or anything? You name it, you shall have it to work with.”

  “It would have no wits.”

  “Why would it have no wits?”

  “Because it would have no life. It would be vital, not vibrant. It would sing, but like the wind rather than the lark. There would be no purpose to it. Why do you want such a thing?”

  My objection was based not so much on the possible relief of his having confused two magical traditions and would in fact ask me to perform a trick so easy that I could teach you here and now, should I wish, but rather that he would strip my skin when he realized his mistake (something I’ve seen him do to warlords stronger by far than him, and to enchanters every bit the equal of me. Men such as Uverian can turn charm against the user, making enchanters helpless, even though they have no talent for charm themselves).

  “I don’t understand why it would have no wits. You have told me before that these children of time can live for years, and even mate and give rise to bastards.”

  I sighed and in irritation reached out and lifted two tiles from the mosaic, tossing them at the sprawling fool, who slapped the stone away and began to roar and rise from his chair.

  I remained quite still, staring up, and when gaze met gaze he calmed a lot, sank back, sat down and scowled at his damaged treasure.

  “You’re just a boy,” he said grimly. “I ought to skin you from neck to groin.”

  “I’m older than you by ten thousand times your father’s life-time,” I said to him, as I had often said to him before. He had once tried to work out the actual number of seasons this monstrous age involved, but had given up. Ten thousand was a favourite number of Uverian’s, though essentially meaningless. He could cope with a hundred – he owned that many horses – and four times a hundred was easy too, since he could visualize four squadrons of a hundred men on four hilltops waiting to descend in attack upon the enemy in the valley. But after that, his numeracy was shrouded in a fug of enormity. Ten thousand was to him all of time itself, all of the stars, and all of the number of blades of grass.

  That I looked like a wisp-bearded youth annoyed him, since he knew this was simply my guise. I do believe he would have preferred – and been more respectful to – an old man, bent-backed and grey-haired, hazel-staffed and charm-tattooed. But an enchanter lives in the body he chooses, and is restricted like all men by the ability and energy of the flesh that is chosen, and therefore the relative importance of the
acts of feasting, running and making love will dictate the choice of body.

  I would always sacrifice the illusion of sagacity for the reality of virility!

  “What exactly do you wish this child to achieve?” I asked with transparent frustration, and clear, controlled impatience.

  “I need it to sneak through Gorlodubnus’s reeking legs and enter the stone maze at Tintagel fort.”

  I had thought as much, though I had repressed the notion in the slim hope that I was wrong. Uverian, of course, would be the mind inside the child! The small hands that stroked the girl would be Uverian’s own sword-calloused leatherfingers.

  “You want the child to come close to Queen Grainne, wife of Gorlodubnus.”

  “Closer than close,” he said, leaning forward with a wild, lascivious look. “As close as two heaving bodies, groin-locked, writhing, fused together by the sweat of—”

  “Yes, yes! I think I understand what you have in mind. So you wish the child to be quite . . . grown, then. Very capable in certain areas.”

  Clearly, the problem of the prowess of this infantasm hadn’t occurred to the Chief Dragon in his wild dreams of conquest of the child bride. He frowned and shook his head. “A boy several years younger than her. It must be that. How else will he gain entry?”

  “But don’t you think that a boy several years younger than her, even a boy of her own age, would be very disappointing compared to . . . say . . . just for the sake of argument, you understand . . . Gorlodubnus, her husband?”

  “She can’t stand the sight of him!”

  “What?’’

  Not what I had heard . . . !

  “She can’t stand the sight of him,” he repeated with self-certainty, and I smiled reassuringly.

  There could be no question about the beauty of Gorlodubnus’s young queen. I had heard from a reliable source that she was born with an arm’s length of golden hair around a face already serene and aware, and the shadow of a torque around her throat. Her breasts even then were perfectly formed, and within an hour of her birth she had uttered the name of the man she wished to marry: Gorlodubnus.