The Mammoth Book of Merlin

by Mike Ashley

  “You should do,” I said to him quietly. He snuggled closer to me, stretching his toes before the fire to warm them as the night deepened and the dew began to form. “You were born to follow hidden paths, to enter forbidden realms.”

  “Are we all born for something or the other?” he asked. “I mean . . . is there always something in our birth that marks our life? Could I have been born to chase hares? Or to carry stones from the quarry?”

  I remembered that one of his friends from the fort was already, at a tender age, being taught to cut, split and fashion stone, his father’s occupation. The other, with whom Minoxus had been extremely close, was a hare-chaser, a witless child, let loose on the sacred beasts since he knew no better. For the short while they had been friends, the two of them had talked in nonsense language, and made pacts, signs and promises, using hands, gestures and the marking of earth.

  Hare-chaser had been distraught when Minoxus had left the stronghold. I could still see his scrawny shape, standing on the hill over the valley, one hand raised, a living statue desperate at his loss, following our small group out of sight. I had thought Minoxus unaware of the boy, but there were tears in his eyes and he kept looking back, surreptitiously, from below his cowl.

  “Of course. We are always born with an end in sight. But there are no rules that say we can’t bend the years to our own design.”

  “I want to run mazes,” he said. “I dream of them. Mazes in grass, in wood, in stone. I dreamt last night of a maze stretching from here to the Moon. White horses galloped round the paths and I was running with them, following them as they galloped. But the dream turned bad, because a bull came up behind me. That’s when I woke up.”

  I stroked the boy’s hair and sang him to sleep. As he hovered between this world and the other I quickly glanced at the noisy part of his mind, and saw a bull like none I have ever seen, save in the sanctuary on that distant island. Hideous, wide-horned, malevolent. It was waiting to be released at the moment of the boy’s death, though whether in celebration or in vengeance I could not say.

  I was angry with myself for forgetting how much of the long-gone is dragged to the infantasm during its creation; my earlier words to Uverian – concerning witlessness and lifelessness – were arrogant, and substantially wrong. It is impossible to mould a creature without pressing memory, and therefore true life, into the clay.

  A day or so later we had come into the shadow of the cliff fortress, and Uverian disguised himself crudely as an old knight, battle-worn, foreign, and unthreatening, in search of a bed, some food and conversation before his joyous journey to Avilion, the beautiful Isle. I came in as the wild man I was, the boy a waif we had encountered nearby and brought to the fort for protection. Minoxus was led away by one of the guards, to the safe-keeping of the nursery, though he was a tall boy, on the edge of manhood, and would probably be looked after in one of the bigger houses, close to the War Chief’s hold.

  Uverian was billeted with a knight of his own supposed age, a man so lost in the reverie and uncertainty of reality caused by drink that he fell upon my companion gratefully, with stories, recollections, wistful reminiscences, and at no time seemed suspicious of the irritation, arrogance and regal bearing that Uverian was hard-pressed to conceal.

  I, of course, slept with the chained hounds, though the accommodation was straw-lined, weatherproofed and more comfortable by far than my own forest dwelling. I was given food by one of the ironworkers, who sat with me in the heat of his dying fire, a long day’s work completed. His wife laughed all the time as she talked, despite the constant squabbling of their three children. When the ironworker went to sit with the other men of his neighbourhood, around a brazier, talking and drinking from clay flagons, I was summarily dismissed by the wife and set loose to prowl the paths between the sheds and houses of the fort.

  I soon found the stone maze and walked around its inward-leaning walls, head low, avoiding lingering as this might have aroused the suspicion of the four guards, each standing beside a flaming torch. There were temples, chariot-housings and stables close to the maze, and I lurked in the deeper of the shadows until, at last! Gorlodubnus swaggered from the nearby hall, shirt undone below his kingly cloak, preening his moustaches, staggering slightly from drink and food. He entered the labyrinth, to follow the spiral path to his fair Grainne.

  He was there for a short while, then returned to the hall, and now I went in search of Minoxus, calling him from his slumber in the corner of the nursery. “Of you go. Into the maze.”

  And as soon as I had seen him walk to the guard and be waved into the winding passage, I sought Uverian, and this time put the Dragon into the slumber that would unite him with the boy. From the moment Uverian’s eyes were closed, he was running the maze in the form of Minoxus; and at length, entering the sanctum of the Queen he loved.

  As I waited, I could tell from the laughter of the sleeping man, the cooing, chortling, hand-waving gestures of delight, that all was going well. His host slept deeply in his own bed and murmured in his own world, and I cast a scant glance at him – and was shocked!

  For the first time since I had come to the fort I realized that this was Gawain! He was aged, now, although his exploits were still recounted along the length and breadth of the crow’s flight across the land. He was maudlin and mead-crazed, but still so strong in all his limbs, and so proud in his face! I had once fought alongside this man, and he was one of the few of the noble breed who had had genuine vision of the land as it had once been fit for heroes, and who had declaimed that the times to come should again be times of the nobility of iron.

  He had made no great fuss about the gods, and no great fuss about his wounds. He was an honourable and delightful man, and he had saved my life at the time of that battle, and then slipped away into a mist that was redolent with the stench of swordbane.

  How could such a knight have come to this? I felt sad and kissed him on his withered lips. I whispered a certain promise, to help him in a certain way, although that promise, my deed of thanks to Gawain, is for another story.

  Soon, Uverian was belly down and demonstrating the familiar Dance of Spring. I could have attached a rope to his belt, slung it over a beam, attached it to a wooden paddle and used the motion of his body to churn milk to cheese.

  I was soon weary of watching and listening to the simple game he played. At dawn he was still going strong – remarkable for a man his age, although it occurred to me that he might be dead, by now, with only the energy of the infantasm keeping the corpse in rhythm – and I went outside to greet the day, particularly avoiding the crowing cock (since I saw Uverian’s grinning jowls in everything from its swollen cock’s-comb, gaping beak and loose, red wattle!).

  I couldn’t avoid the Dragon Bastard, of course, and he was soon breathlessly embracing me, promising me bronze so pure – he knew how much I valued it – that not even the forgotten Roman could have fashioned it in less than a full turning of the moon. Whatever I wanted I would have. Someone, somewhere would make it. He’d see to it.

  Oh, and by the way: “I like Minoxus! He’s a young man after my own heart! He’s going back tonight. Grainne can’t wait! Nor can I . . . It felt so real.”

  I left the fort, hid in the woods, survived on the memory of the long gone, shedding water, shedding weight, thinning, hardening, becoming ready for the deed that would return Minoxus to the litter of the forest, and my broken wit to my breaking heart.

  I was confused. The image of the cheeky boy, of his brown eyes, his grin, his trickery, kept him so much alive in me that I weakened on two occasions, joined him in sleep, journeyed in his dreams as he curled against the soft feather pillow of the Queen’s bed.

  Uverian was there, the beast, raging at the edges of the flesh, but pacified by action, subdued by intercourse, prowling in the shadows as Minoxus himself consumed the scents and sounds of the hidden palace, felt the down-like touch of the woman, responded to her tears, her fears, her kisses and her confidences. In Minoxus
she had found an unexpected lover (little realizing the potency of the Dragon behind the youthful energy of the boy) and an unexpected friend. Raised on a diet of Gorlodubnus, only now was she aware of the extent of her imprisonment. I had misjudged her, maligned her; only through Minoxus’s eyes and ears could the full extent of this wretched woman’s condition be revealed, to contrast with the slaggard gossip of those knights who rode between the strongholds, and whose lies could win them favour and their meat and drink.

  I had been such a fool!

  It had certainly been my intention to kill the boy. Now, though, I was torn between killing him and nurturing him. If I could keep him close to me, I could keep my wits about me. Literally! It would be imperative to hold him close, and to make him understand the nature of his being. But for the first time in my life – and it had been a long life to say the least – I felt the presence of a companion who could enrich me as much as I could enrich him, a boy who could grow, learn and live a full life until a death in the normal course of things. I had denied myself children from the moment of my birth. (Certainly! The possibility was there as I opened my eyes for the first time! I had other things in mind . . .). Uverian, for all his transgressions, had at least served me well by encouraging me to bring to life the son of the Labyrinth.

  I listened to the talk between the Queen and the boy I would take with me into the forest.

  I should have paid more heed to the scratching, fuming shadow of the king.

  “Get up, you young-old fool.”

  I stirred from the saturated earth, stared up at the shadowy form of the man above me.

  “Who are you?”

  “Open your eyes, you trickster.”

  It was Uverian; his voice was hoarse, as if he had been shouting, or maybe crying.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Minoxus needs you. He’s dying. Quickly: to the fort!”

  Bemused, my youthful body betraying my older mind, I staggered from the glade, staff dragging behind me, pushing the lank hair from my eyes. I ran towards the winding road that led between the massive walls of earth and wood, but stopped at the sound of a horse and a man’s laughter behind me.

  Turning, I saw Uverian with the boy in his arms, mounted on a tall stallion, cloak wrapped tightly. The king was smiling.

  I shouted: “Give him to me. You have no right to him.”

  “Take him from me if you can. The boy is mine, now. Grainne was fun, but with this young bear I can conquer nations. You created well, you young-old man.”

  “He’ll die. You must let me have him.”

  “He’ll outlive me. Great Llug, your power is quite amazing! There’s something from all corners of the earth in this young bear! Minoxus no more. He’s Artorius from now! I’ll cherish him, and raise him, and one day he’ll ride in honour, carrying the emblem of our clan. Thankyou for that.”

  “Give him back!” I cried. Minoxus looked calm, indifferent, watching me through those dark eyes, his mouth moist. There was something hungry about him. He was finding life, feeding on the life of the Dragon who twisted and turned on the snorting horse, then turned away and rode away, back to the forest and the gloom beyond.

  “This will turn out badly,” I whispered to the boy.

  “Worse than you think,” the answer came, “when Grainne gives birth.”

  Beyond the walls, behind me, a woman was screaming.

  Not for the first time in my life I wondered what I had started!

  THE PLEDGED WORD

  MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY

  Although there’s hardly been a dearth of Arthurian novels in recent decades, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon (1983), through its breadth and quality, captured the public imagination and catapulted the genre onto another plane, ushering in a new generation of writing. The book was the first to consider seriously the relationship between the spread of Christianity through Britain and its impact on the old religion, which was as much a conflict as the physical one between Saxon and Briton. Bradley (1930–99) had hitherto been better known for her science fiction, which she had been writing and selling since 1953, especially her long series of Darkover novels, which began with The Sword of Aldones in 1962 and which gradually shifted in treatment away from science fiction to fantasy. Today Bradley is best remembered for her historical, or perhaps more accurately her mythological fantasies, such as the blockbuster novels The Firebrand (1987), set at the time of the Trojan War, and The Forest House (1994), set during the Roman invasion of Britain.

  The following story is a reworking of part of The Mists of Avalon. We move briefly away from Merlin to consider the childhood of Nimuë, whose life will later entwine with Merlin’s.

  It had been a long time since Morgaine had been to Avalon; she was not entirely sure that she could find her way back through the mists. But now it was time for her to make the attempt.

  Her first step was to go to Pellinore’s castle, sent by Lancelet to bear his greetings to his wife and children. And then, when she was alone with Elaine, she came to her true purpose.

  “Remember you made me a vow once – that if I helped you win Lancelet, you would give me what I asked of you. Nimuë is past five years old now, old enough for fostering. I ride tomorrow for Avalon. You must make her ready to accompany me.”

  “No!” It was a long cry, almost a shriek. “No, Morgaine, you cannot mean it!”

  Morgaine had feared this. She spoke sharply. “Elaine, you pledged your word.”

  “She is a Christian child – how can I send her from her mother into – into a world of pagan sorceries . . . ?”

  “I am, after all, her kinswoman,” Morgaine said gently. “How long have you known me, Elaine? Have you ever known me do anything so dishonourable or so wicked that you would hesitate to entrust a child to me? I do not, after all, want her for the dragon, and the days are long, long past when even criminals were burnt on altars of sacrifice.”

  “What will befall her, then, in Avalon?” asked Elaine, so fearfully that Morgaine wondered if Elaine, after all, had harbored some such notions.

  “She will be a priestess, trained in all the wisdom of Avalon,” said Morgaine. “One day she will read the stars and know all the wisdom of the world and the heavens.” She found herself smiling. “Her brother told me that she wished to learn to read and write and to play the harp – and in Avalon no one will forbid her this. Her life will be less harsh than if you had put her to school in some nunnery. We will surely ask less of her in the way of fasting and penance before she is grown.”

  “But – but what shall I say to Lancelet?” wavered Elaine.

  “What you will,” said Morgaine. “It would be best to tell him the truth, that you sent her to fosterage in Avalon, that she might fill the place left empty there. But I care not whether you perjure yourself to him – you may tell him that she was drowned in the lake or taken by the ghost of old Pellinore’s dragon, for all I care.”

  “And what of the priest? When Father Griffin hears that I have sent my daughter to become a sorceress in the heathen lands—”

  “I care even less what you tell him,” Morgaine said. “If you choose to tell him that you put your soul in pawn for my sorceries to win yourself a husband, and pledged your first daughter in return – no? I thought not.”

  “You are hard, Morgaine,” said Elaine, tears falling from her eyes. “Cannot I have a few days to prepare her to go from me, to pack such things as she will need—”

  “She needs not much,” said Morgaine. “A change of shift if you will, and warm things for riding, a thick cloak and stout shoes, no more than that. In Avalon they will give her the dress of a novice priestess. Believe me,” she added kindly, “she will be treated with love and reverence as the granddaughter of the greatest of priestesses. And they will – what is it your priests say? – they will temper the wind to the shorn lamb. She will not be forced to austerities until she is of an age to endure them. I think she will be happy there.”

  �
��Happy? In that place of evil sorcery?”

  Morgaine answered with conviction, “I vow to you – I was happy in Avalon, and every day since I left I have longed, early and late, to return thither. Have you ever heard me lie? Come – let me see the child.”

  “I bade her stay in her room and spin in solitude till sunset. She was rude to the priest and is being punished,” said Elaine.

  “But I remit the punishment,” said Morgaine. “I am now her guardian and foster-mother, and there is no longer any reason for her to show courtesy to that priest. Take me to her.”

  They rode forth the next day at dawn. Nimuë had wept at parting with her mother, but even before they were gone an hour, she had begun to peer forth curiously at Morgaine from under the hood of her cloak. She was tall for her age, less like Lancelet’s mother, Viviane, than like Morgause or Igraine; fair-haired, but with enough copper in the golden strands that Morgaine thought her hair would be red when she was older. And her eyes were almost the color of the small wood violets which grew by the brooks.

  They had had only a little wine and water before setting out, so Morgaine asked, “Are you hungry, Nimuë? We can stop and break our fast as soon as we find a clearing, if you wish.”

  “Yes, Aunt.”

  “Very well.” And soon she dismounted and lifted the little girl from her pony.

  “I have to—” The child cast down her eyes and squirmed.

  “If you have to pass water, go behind that tree with the serving-woman,” said Morgaine, “and never be ashamed again to speak of what God has made.”

  “Father Griffin says it is not modest—”

  “And never speak to me again of anything Father Griffin said to you,” Morgaine said gently, but with a hint of iron behind the mild words. “That is past, Nimuë.”

  When the child came back she said, with a wide-eyed look of wonder, “I saw someone very small peering out at me from behind a tree. My brother said you were called Morgaine of the Fairies – was it a fairy, Aunt?”