by Mike Ashley
Picking up his candle again, he led on, down into the darkness and clamminess.
“We are below the water now,” he whispered to Vivian. The walls each side of them were damp and slimy, the roof dripped above them – black shreds of some dark growth hung down like wet rags. The smell of decay was overpowering. On they went into the darkness.
Then they halted in front of a door, blank and black. Vivian saw Merlin’s hand wave, tracing figures, and heard him muttering strange words. Then, his candle grasped in his left hand, he thrust firmly against the door, and it opened.
Inside was a chamber no larger than a closet, and all its walls were inlaid with shells. They caught the light of the candles and gleamed back against the darkness – a mosaic of shells, disposed in geometric forms. Right in front, as the door was opened, a central panel bore a crude figure, depicted with larger and more luminous shells. The figure of a man with a fish’s tail – or, one might say, half man, half fish. The clumsily drawn tail curved round below the figure. Its human arms spread out to right and left, and the face was round and doll-like, but a doll’s face that was both stupid and malignant – a grinning mouth showed a row of saw-like teeth. There was nothing else in the little room and no light save that of the candles Merlin and Vivian carried.
Merlin stood at the doorway, and raised his candle. Then he called, on a low and resonant note:
“Shony – Shony, Shony, Shony. Neckar also I call you, and Deva Jonas. Shony, Shony, Shony. Dweller in the inmost dark, in the place where drowned things go and are decayed – Shony, by the Ruler of the Element of Water, I call you.”
And from the black wall before them, as it would seem from the white figure on the wall, came a voice – rusty and grating, as if from between those jagged teeth:
“Shony, Shony, Shony. I am here. What would you?”
“I require your treasure of treasures, the sword Caliburn.”
There seemed to be a hiss as of indrawn breath.
“What I have I hold.”
“Then I adjure you in the name of the Earth-Shaker, Poseidon the Mighty, the Brother of the Sky – I require the sword Caliburn.”
“What will you give me in return for it?” The voice took on a note of cunning.
“No, you creature of the slime, you devourer of dead men’s bones, I do not make bargains with you. I command you in the Name . . .”
The word he spoke could not be heard clearly in Vivian’s terrified ears – it was too thunderous and resonant – three syllables, or maybe four, echoing on and on, shaking the earth above.
“As you say, Master,” the spirit voice assented, more soft and meek now. “But it is a long way off – far down at the bottom of the Great Ocean.”
“Then send your slaves to fetch it. Now!”
Lights seemed to flicker across the shells that made up the crude figure of the ugly merman. The surface seemed to shake.
“Master, I have it here.”
“Then give it to me.”
“No – no – not to you. Only to the right one. To a woman. To the Lady of the Lake. To herself.”
“She is here. Nimuë, the Lady of the Lake. Now give it up to her.”
“Not so. You are on dry land, and I am in the water. She must come and take it. Let her row a boat to the head of the Loch, and I myself will come up from the waters, and give her that sword.”
Vivian listened with sinking heart.
“Then I will come with her.”
“You will not. If you are in the boat I will drown you, and her also, and the sword will go back. She must come alone. I will not harm her.”
“You had better not harm her, or by the Name I have invoked, I will send the Fires Below to destroy your secret place. By THAT NAME, submit to me now, and yield up the sword to the Lady of the Lake.”
“I will do so, but she must come now – not wait for daylight – and she must come alone. I have said all that I will say.” And the voice was suddenly still.
“Depart in peace,” came Merlin’s voice, as he stepped backwards out of the little chamber, and closed the door. He held the candle above Vivian’s head.
“Dare you, my dear—? Of course I know you dare, but God forgive me for sending you into this!”
They went quietly and quickly up the stone passages and stairs. It was night above, but the faint moonlight seemed dazzling after the darkness below. Merlin led the way down to the water’s edge.
The roses, exuberant over the edge of the loch, gave a sweet scent as they passed. Vivian breathed it deeply and gratefully after the dead smells of the underground place. It was a still and overcast summer night, the moon’s light diffused behind the clouds, showing the paleness of the gleaming water between the dark trees. Vivian fetched out the little light boat they used for crossing the lake, and seated herself in it, facing astern to row. With a few strokes she sent the boat moving smoothly away from the steps – she had to look backwards over her shoulder to see the way she was going, but after one look she kept her eyes fixed on the tall white form of Merlin as he receded from her.
The loch opened into the sea, and all its seaward extent was tidal – the water rose and fell, not much but perceptibly, once a day, making a fresh interchange between fresh and salt water; but at the head of the loch was a stagnant creek, where all the floating rubbish and refuse drifted and stayed, and sank into the black ooze. Dark, sour plants grew there, and yew trees and black alders overhung the bank; by the day the air was full of pestilent midges, and at night, stealthy creatures moved between the dark bank and the dark waters. No one went there. But that was where Vivian had to row her boat, softly in the darkness.
Presently she could feel the boat scraping upon the mud and the mess of broken branches below. She shipped her oars.
“Shony,” she called, her heart beating.
From the bottom of the boat, where Merlin had placed it for her, she picked up a black cockerel, bound up by the feet. A knife lay beside it. Shuddering, she lifted the bird by the feet, hanging its head over the side of the boat, and with one single movement sliced off the cockerel’s head. The bird struggled and fluttered horribly in its dead reflex, and the blood gushed out into the lake. She held it for a minute, and then dropped it into the bloodstained water.
“Shony,” she cried again. And then she saw him.
In the dim light he came up out of the water – first a smooth hump, like a thick black bubble, then it became his head, then head and shoulders – greenish-black, streaming wet, the long slimy hair straight down over the featureless face, but through it a gleam of cruel eyes and teeth – and with it came a horrible stench of fermenting vapours.
“Now,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking, “Shony, give me the sword Caliburn.”
The apparition spoke from under its streeling hair.
“Are you Nimuë, the Lady of the Lake?”
“I am Nimuë, the Lady of the Lake.”
“Then come and get it!” – and the creature gave a harsh, barking laugh, and held out, with black shrivelled hands, a long sheath-like shape. Still seated in the boat she turned half round, keeping a grip on the thwart with her left hand, and with her right reached out and seized the shape. Undoubtedly it was a scabbard, which she held by the point end. Shony, laughing again, pulled back and wrenched out the sword within, leaving her with the empty scabbard in her hand.
“There it is then – swim for it if you want it!” he croaked, and flung the sword, in a shining arc, far over his head and out into the lake. Then the baleful presence was gone down into the water.
After a minute’s utter dismay and loss, Vivian grasped the scabbard in both hands – an ancient thing it was, slippery with the mud of the sea bottom, but discernible as a piece of leather-work overlaid with bronze – more by touch than by sight she made out the runes on it, and pronounced the words written there, aloud over the water. Then pointing the open end of the scabbard out over the water, she spoke the sword’s name.
“Cal
iburn – the blade of destiny. Arthur’s time has come, I Nimuë, Lady of the Lake, call you – in the NAME which Merlin has pronounced.”
The words echoed off the surface of the water.
And the sword floated and came towards her, skimming over the surface as if a lodestone drew it. Straight to the boat’s side and she put out her hand into the water (still afraid of feeling Shony’s slimy touch) and drew it in and placed it back in the scabbard. Then all in one movement, not staying for one instant, she picked up the oars and struck out for the Island, all the time, as she rowed, her eyes on the dark creek where Shony had risen. But when she turned her head to see her way, there was Merlin, white and straight on the steps, and his arms received her safely, and took the sword from her. His hand traced the banishing pentagram against the black water of the other shore.
“By the grace of the Mighty One,” he said, “Arthur has a sword.”
In the firelit hall of the little castle, they examined the sword. Merlin laid it on the table, having first carefully placed a cloth lest any fragments of the scabbard should fall. For both sword and scabbard were blackened, and corroded, and crumbling. With great care, Merlin drew the sword from the scabbard, and laid it by its side. The blade appeared to be of some dark brown metal; the hilt was of a strangely beautiful shape, cross-formed but curving; the quillets, or side-pieces, were outlined in garnets and agates, which even in its decayed state caught the light; and the pommel was one round, perfect, white crystal, now clouded grey like the moon. The scabbard, now that the blade was withdrawn, was ready to fall to pieces, for it was made of many small metal parts, set upon leather, now shrivelled and cracking like so much rotten wood. He lit a lamp, such as they had, and looked long at it.
“This is very old,” he said, “Oh, very, very old. It was made in the days when all weapons were made of bronze, and yet it is not all of bronze. It is made of a subtle mixture of all the seven metals: gold, silver, iron, quicksilver, tin, copper and lead, by an art long ago lost to man. I knew the man who made it – in another life. By strange and cunning ways he made it – some of the metals he melted and mangled, others he interwove into the inscription on the blade – there were other skills as well. So, by the interchanging of the natures of the seven metals, a powerful magic was put upon the sword. Although it was made in the days when men had only bronze, yet there is a power upon it that could cut through steel. Therefore it is called “Caliburn” – “Cut-Steel” in one of the old languages. I know a man that can restore it, both blade, hilt and scabbard. Tomorrow I will go in search of him.”
“But Shony?” Vivian said, still trembling.
“Ah, Shony cannot harm you now. You have paid him his proper due, and he dare not ask for more. Never fear Shony.”
“All the same, I’ll keep away from the head of the loch, and – can we seal up that place underground?”
“We will do so, dear. But have no fear! From now onward, Arthur’s star is rising.”
THE RITE OF CHALLENGE
PETER VALENTINE TIMLETT
Peter Valentine Timlett (b. 1933) erstwhile student of the occult, is the author of the Seedbearers trilogy: The Seedbearers (1974), The Power of the Serpent (1976) and The Twilight of the Serpent (1977). These novels follow the fall and destruction of Atlantis and the survival of the Atlanteans in ancient Britain. The story includes a more authentic rationale for the construction of Stonehenge than Geoffrey of Monmouth’s. Timlett has also written an extensive Athurian novel, Merlin and the Sword of Avalon, published in 2003. It is a detailed consideration of the mystical aspects of Merlin and his influence upon the Arthurian age. Along with Mary Stewart’s trilogy and Nikolai Tolstoy’s The Coming of the King it is the most complete work written about Merlin. Judge for yourself. The following is an extract from the novel which has been completely revised and expanded by Timlett to form a self-standing novella. Timlett’s other Athurian novels may be found at www.imaginationforum.co.uk
A dark barge towed by twelve bearded and fierce-eyed knights crept down the west coast of Britain from Caledonia in the far north. Down through the Sound of Jura it came, hugging the coast which knew of ancient Ardifuir, Duntroon, and Druim an Duin, down past Kintyre and across open sea past dour Crammag Head and down past the dreaded Isle of Manx to skirt the coast of Wales. Ever southward it grimly came, past the Isle of Mona which bore within its bosom the whitened bones of slaughtered Druids, round Bardsley Isle and across the fierce-watered bay to South Wales, round Skomer Island, and at last turned east into the wide channel whose southern shore was the wild sea marshes of south-west Britain, and nosed cautiously up the sluggish marsh river that led to Wearyall Hill, the outlying buttress of Avalon near to Glastonbury Tor.
For the most part of that wild journey a woman had stood grimly silent in the prow of the boat, her black hair and cloak blowing about her as the wind sought to drag her into the merciless sea. When the barge finally came to the jetty at Ponter’s Ball she bade the sailor-knights make camp and wait for her return. She then left them and skirted Wearyall Hill until she came to the ancient chalybeate well close to Glastonbury Tor. There, in a cluster of crude stone-built hermit cells, she greeted the twelve who had waited her coming.
“Welcome, Mistress,” said the senior of the twelve priestesses. “You have come more quickly than we had dared hoped.”
The woman nodded. “Fortunately I was able to leave immediately. Is the prisoner still safely held?”
The priestess nodded towards one of the cells. “Naked and bound, but we have neither questioned him further, nor harmed him, but waited your coming.”
“Good.” The woman stared briefly at the sky. “It will be dark soon. Light the fire. We will talk after supper.”
As the priestesses busied themselves with their task the woman walked across to the well. She cast forth her cloak and other garments and stood for a moment staring down at the reflection of her nakedness. Then from her bull’s-hide carrying-bag she drew forth a heavy, all-enveloping, midnight blue ritual robe and drew it about herself. She then took out a garter of red eastern silk, a symbol recognized throughout the land as the insignia of a high priestess of the Elder Faith, and fastened it around her left thigh beneath her robe. This finished she joined her companions at supper. During the meal itself she forbade any serious talk but when they had finished she commanded the fire to be replenished, and the flames leapt high in the evening darkness and illuminated the thirteen faces in an eerie glow.
“Firstly, what news of the black-robes?”
On the far side of the Tor was the tiny Christian church of Glastonbury whose priests wore robes of black. For nearly five centuries an uneasy truce had existed between the newly emerged church of Christ and the ancient Elder Faith, both of whom were determined to hold their place at Glastonbury. The enmity would have been expressed openly long ago had it not been for the fact that of the five centuries four had been lived under Roman occupation when both Christian and Elder Faith alike had to pay lip service to Mithraism and the Roman Imperial Cult. But on the departure of the Romans the enforced truce had been growing more and more uneasy.
The senior priestess spread her hands. “Nothing has changed since your last visit. They go about their business and studiously ignore us. It is as though they seek to convince themselves that we do not even exist.”
“And the prisoner?”
“In a ritual some weeks ago, using the well as a mirror, we saw him coming in this direction. We recognized him as Silvanus from Merlin’s group, and since you asked us to keep watch on the wizard’s activities in this area we watched him closely.”
“And?”
The woman shrugged. “Priests after the Order of Merlin are difficult to read, as you know. We knew that he was coming to see the Christian monks but we could not tell why. His purpose was deliberately hidden within his mind, and guarded. On the grounds that only the valuable is specially guarded we decided to detain him and put him to the question. He arrived two days later and we
were able to capture him before he could announce his arrival.”
“So the monks do not know we have him?”
“Correct. Obviously his arrival was not expected.”
“Did you seek outside help to capture him?”
“No, he is no longer young and we are twelve.”
The High Priestess relaxed a trifle and even smiled. “You have done well,” she said softly. “So what is the purpose of his visit?”
The woman hesitated. The others of the twelve stared at the ground and could not meet their Mistress’s eyes. “We do not know,” the senior confessed.
The High Priestess frowned. “You put the question?” she said sharply.
“Repeatedly – for a week – but he remained obdurate, and so we sent for you.”
The Pythoness pursed her lips thoughtfully. There were few indeed who could withstand the ritual question of the Elder Faith. “From whence does he draw his strength to resist?” she said suddenly.
The twelve visibly relaxed. They had feared her anger but were now reassured. “We do not know but we suspect from Merlin himself.”
“Does the wizard know we have him?”
“No, not as far as we can tell.”
The High Priestess was silent, lost in thought. “You have done well,” she said suddenly. “No blame attaches to you. Tend the fire and bring the prisoner here.”
Two of the juniors leapt to feed the fire and stir it into fresh life, and the senior priestess and two others went to fetch the prisoner.
Naked, his hands tied behind him, Silvanus was brought stumbling into the firelight. His grey, almost white, hair was matted and his wrists were dark with dried blood from the chafing of the thongs.
“Unbind him, bring water to bathe him, and give him his cloak,” the Pythoness commanded.
The senior priestess slipped a knife beneath the thongs and cut them, and Silvanus grimaced with pain as the blood began to circulate. The two juniors brought a bowl and washed his face and wrists, and covered his nakedness with his robe. All this while Silvanus kept his eyes lowered and uttered no word.