by Mike Ashley
“I don’t understand.”
“It is simple. He is having that great round table installed at Camelot, and at it will sit the very best of Arthur’s knights. Because it is a symbol of the inner Table he hopes that the knights will be inspired to emulate the great archetypal figures who sit at the real Table on the inner. If contact is established between symbol and that which it symbolizes then the power will begin to flow, and if that flow is maintained without corruption it is possible that the Holy Grail itself will be drawn into the earth sphere and will appear in the centre of the Round Table for all the knights to see. The fool, he knows not the power with which he meddles!”
Her companion frowned. “Forgive me, Mistress, but it sounds like a worthy enough ambition to me.”
Morgan le Fay grunted irritably. “You of all people, Netzah, should understand the danger, for you are responsible for the ritual training of all the junior seeresses and priestesses in the Elder Faith. You know better than most that a priestess, or a priest for that matter, makes of herself a vessel to hold the power that she invokes, and if she is untrained or too junior for that particular ritual then the flow of power will shatter the vessel.”
“Ah, yes, sometimes death, though more usually a form of insanity.”
“Yes, insanity, that type of insanity that causes a schism between the soul and the personality. Imagine the power involved in an invocation of the Round Table of Glory and the Holy Grail itself – it would be colossal – and those invoking the power would not be doing so for themselves alone. If I know Merlin he will attempt to use the Knights of the Round Table as being representative of the entire British race, perhaps even of the whole of humanity. He is certainly vain enough for that.”
“And if it fails?”
Morgan le Fay shook her head. “I shudder to think. A form of racial insanity probably, a gigantic abyss between the Group Soul and the Group Mind of the race. Such a failure could herald a dark age that could last for centuries. It might even permanently prevent the Holy Grail from ever being able to manifest in earth. It is too early, far too early. The irresponsible old fool may cause untold damage to the spiritual life of the race.”
“But what can we do?”
“In the long term, sow the seeds of corruption amongst Arthur’s knights to prevent any contact between the symbol and the inner reality. Bring about the death of Arthur, or get rid of Merlin, or both.”
“And in the short term?”
“Destroy that table, for without the symbol the work cannot even begin.”
“How?”
Morgan le Fay mused for a moment. “Are you familiar with the rituals of the Tenth and Fourteenth Keys?”
The woman frowned. “To invoke wrath and violence, yes, but those rituals are rarely used.”
“There is rarely good purpose, but there is now. If we are not too late we must destroy the table before it reaches Camelot.”
“Hold that wheel! Hold the wheel, you dolt!” Sir Agrinore spurred his horse back up the treacherous slope. “Put a stone under it. Quickly, quickly! Oh God, it’s going to run away! Hold the wheel!”
One wheel spinning free, the other momentarily lodged against a stone, the whole contraption, the giant cart and its cumbersome load, lurched sickeningly and threatened to veer off the track and plunge out of control down the side of the hill. Two peasants leapt to the wheel and hung on, and two more grabbed a large stone from the side of the trackway and raced to place it beneath the wheel. The horses reared in panic, their eyes rolling and their nostrils flaring. The man who had been holding the head of the lead horse was lifted clear off his feet and dragged into the mêlée of the panic-stricken animals. Those who were desperately clinging onto the cart felt their feet sliding away from them in the mud. Two of them left the cart and raced to control the horses. One of them scrambled between the animals to rescue his friend. A flailing hoof smashed his head and he disappeared beneath the jumble of thrashing bodies. With the stone in place the cart came to a sudden halt and the horses began to quieten down.
Sir Margryn galloped back up the slope. “What happened?” he shouted.
“Nearly went over the side,” said Agrinore. “It’s safe enough now but I don’t think we should attempt any more today. These fellows are exhausted.”
“We can’t camp on the side of a hill.”
“And we can’t go on either. If we do the whole thing will likely capsize. We might damage the table or lose it altogether, and you know what Lodegreaunce would say about that.”
“God’s curse on this wretched table!”
“Aye,” said Agrinore gloomily, “So it would seem.”
The two knights looked at the sky. Though barely mid-afternoon in early summer the day was already dark and chill. The rain teemed down, the fierce wind driving it almost horizontally into their faces. Margryn threw up his hands in exasperation. “Bright sunshine not two hours ago, and now this. It’s not natural.”
Agrinore shivered and looked about him cautiously. “I saw three ravens this morning. I knew it was an ill day.” He patted his horse’s neck soothingly. “This is Merlin’s table, and anything to do with that hell-spawned wizard bodes no good for the likes of you and I.”
“It’s the wrong shape,” said Margryn. “It’s not natural for a table to be round.” He looked again to the sky. “I say again that God’s curse is on this thing, and on us for being involved with it.”
“What do you suggest?”
“What else,” said Margryn irritably, “except to get this cursed thing to Camelot as quickly as possible and so be rid of it.”
At that moment one of the peasants came up to them, a huge fellow naked to the waist, by trade a stone-mason. His skin glistened with water and his eyes glowed redly with a sullen anger. “Aidan, the ostler, is dead,” he growled briefly. “Head cracked open like an egg. Hywell’s leg is broken.”
The two knights looked at each other. “And there’s the proof,” said Margryn grimly. “One death already. How many more to come?”
Agrinore looked up the hill. “We’ll camp under that overhanging bluff. That’ll shelter us from the worst of the rain.” He turned to the stone-mason. “When the horses are tethered and fed you can bury the fellow.”
“There’s no priest to say the words,” said the man sullenly.
“Priest? What d’you want a priest for, he’s only an ostler. Just dig a hole and drop him in. Don’t waste my time with stupid questions.” He turned back to Margryn. “Did you hear that? A priest he wants, as if he was a knight. By God he’ll be asking for a tomb next.”
It took them an hour to unhitch the six great draft-horses and get them up the slope to shelter, and to prepare such evening meal as they could in the rain-sodden conditions. After the meal the peasant buried the dead ostler on the hill-side and marked the place with a pile of stones.
“Do you see that?” said Agrinore. “A cairn no less. Lodegreaunce has been too easy with these dolts.”
The huge stone-mason, Glyndwr by name, came up to the two knights. “We have set Hywell’s leg as best we can,” he growled, “but we are no healers.”
Agrinore shrugged. “He will have to take his chance. He can travel on the cart.”
“It will kill him,” the man said simply. “It is still five days to Camelot, even if we make good time. As well as the broken bone the leg is split open from knee to crotch. If we do not get him to a healer the rotting disease will set in and he will die.”
“I can’t help that. It was his own fault. He was careless.”
“He was trying to rescue his friend.”
“That makes him a fool as well as careless.”
“There is a village near here, and the cell of a hermit healer. If we leave at first light six of us could get him there in a litter by noon and be back here by mid-afternoon.”
“And waste a day? Certainly not. He can take his chance on the cart.”
“But he will die.”
Agrinore sprang to his
feet. “Great God in heaven, must I stand and argue with a peasant dolt like you! He will take his chance on the cart, I say, or stay here and rot, and if I hear one more word of argument you will taste my sword. Now get about your business and don’t bother me again.”
Glyndwr’s eyes glowed redly but he turned and strode back to his companions. Agrinore slumped back to the ground and leant back against a rock. “All this and insolent peasants too.”
Margryn looked at his friend closely. “You are nervous. I have never heard you speak like that before, particularly to one like Glyndwr. He’s the finest stone-mason for three days’ march in any direction. I always thought you liked him.”
“As a stone-mason, yes, but a few words of praise have obviously gone to his head if he thinks he can argue with his betters.”
“Hywell is a friend of his. We have been a week on this journey already, and another week to go. One more day will not matter and it might give a chance for the weather to clear.”
“What weather? Did you not say yourself that this was God’s curse? Make up your mind what you believe – bad weather or a curse.”
“Aye, God’s curse, and likely to grow heavier if we leave a man to die.”
Agrinore sprang to his feet again. “By all the demons in hell,” he shouted, his face suddenly flushed to a blotched and ugly red, “are you going to argue as well!” He glared down at his friend. “The table is going to Camelot without a moment’s delay despite every insolent peasant and stupid knight in Christendom, and if you wish to say otherwise then say it with your sword!”
For a brief second Margryn’s face was a portrait of astonishment, but then the expression changed to a sudden and uncontrollable laughter. “I have tolerated your peevishness enough for one day,” he roared, struggling to his feet and pulling at his sword.
Agrinore raised his own sword high above his head in a two-handed grip, and before Margryn was even properly on his feet he swung the blade down with all his strength and split his companion’s head from crown to neck as easily as slicing an apple in half. For one half-second of horrible suspense the mutilated body remained on its feet and then crashed heavily down amongst the rocks.
The peasants sat huddled round their fire. For a long time Agrinore remained unmoving, and then he turned and saw the men staring at him. “And the same goes for anyone else who wishes to argue,” he growled, and sheathing his sword he stamped angrily away to the far end of the rock shelf.
At first the men were silent, heads down, not looking at one another. Presently one of them stirred the fire to new life. “Sir Margryn was right,” he said shortly. “There’s an evil curse on this work.”
One of the men, older than the others, pulled his sodden tunic more closely around his body and spread his hands to the fire. “I have known Agrinore and Margryn since they were infants together. I was a body servant to Agrinore’s father. Never have I heard them speak even an angry word to each other until today.”
“It was a cowardly blow,” said one of the others.
Suddenly Glyndwr held up his hand for silence, his head cocked to one side. His sharp ear had caught a sound from further down the hill, and as he rose to his feet they saw a rider coming up the slope towards them.
“It’s Merlin,” one of them whispered.
“It’s his doing,” whispered another angrily. “Wherever there is evil, there is Merlin.”
The Arch-Mage reined his horse and slid from the saddle. He stared at the sky, the rain beating on his face and beard, knowing that elsewhere not half a mile thence in any direction the sun still shone in a bright summer’s evening. He looked back down the trackway to where the cart and its contents lay drunkenly askew, and at the muddy hoofmarks where the great horses had been brought up the slope to shelter.
He then walked a few paces and stared down at the mutilated body of Sir Margryn, then moved along the rock shelf to where Sir Agrinore lay. The sword was by its owner’s side and Merlin saw the blood on its blade. The knight made no move nor any sound. The wizard gently grasped the shoulder and turned him over, and from behind him a dozen voices gasped their surprise. Sir Agrinore was quite dead. There was no mark of a wound, but the face was mottled to so dark a colour as to be almost black. The eyes were wide open and staring, the expression frozen into a glaze of terror, the mouth horribly agape.
Merlin sighed and closed the dead knight’s eyes. He then retraced his steps back along the rock shelf, noting the mound and cairn of stones where Aidan the ostler had been buried, and then knelt by the injured Hywell and examined the broken and split leg.
Finally he walked over to the group by the fire. “All this,” he said grimly, “has been the work of sorcery. Don’t blame Sir Agrinore for he was its victim, but now there will be no further incident.” He pointed to the injured man. “Your friend must be taken to a healer, and soon.”
Glyndwr stepped forward. “I tried to tell Sir Agrinore that there is a hermit healer near here. Six of us could have him there by noon tomorrow and be back here by mid-afternoon.”
“Good, then I leave that to you, Glyndwr. We will wait your return, and then we must continue the journey, but this time I will travel with you. That table must reach Camelot. More than you can appreciate rests upon its doing so.”
For the next hour they busied themselves digging a double grave for Agrinore and Margryn. “They were friends together in life,” said Merlin, “and so shall it be in death.” Then all save Merlin rolled out their skins of fur and under a rapidly darkening sky fell thankfully to sleep.
Merlin retired to the other end of the natural shelf and sat down with his back to the rock wall. He shut his eyes and slipped from his body and rose high above the scene. For half a mile around, centred on the human encampment, was a great black writhing cloud of evil-looking vapour. The disgusting cloud trailed off to a thin black line that disappeared into the distance to the southwest. He rose a little higher and moved to each cardinal point in turn, drawing a line of force. He then, as it were, drew the ends together and set up a vibration that soon broke up the foul vapour into smaller and smaller pockets of miasma until only the thin black line was left.
Then, grimly, he faced the south-west and projected his image into the distance to the point where the vapour had originated, and there, below him, in the great stone circle, was the source of their trouble. Cor Gaur, Stonehenge: the circle had borne many a name in its four-thousand-year history, but ever it had been the great sacred centre of the Elder Faith. Ignored to their detriment by the Christian monks, feared by them if the truth were known, it was the very centre of the great web of force that radiated throughout the land. Other stone circles there were, smaller circles, hundreds of them, who knows but perhaps a thousand spread throughout the petty kingdoms that would be Arthur’s realm, all part of the great web of the earth-force that found its upwelling source at Cor Gaur. And there below him, at the centre of the web, spinning her magic, was Morgan le Fay and her twelve witch-maidens, grouped around the Hele stone, chanting one of the Elder rites.
His image drifted lower, and lower still, until it came to hover at the eastern portal. The thin line of black vapour still writhed upwards from the centre of the Hele stone, but Merlin snuffed it out at its source, and as he did so the chanting stopped and all was still.
Morgan le Fay remained still, every sense both inner and outer alert, seeking the intruder. The priestesses also neither moved nor spoke, their eyes on her – waiting. Never in her lifetime had any outsider ever broken into any ritual of hers, though occasionally a few had tried in the early years of her stewardship. She moved to the East and faced outwards, and then, pointing her long taloned finger at shoulder height in front of her, arm rigidly straight, she drew the five-pointed pentacle and uttered the ritual phrase of sealing in a vibrantly powerful voice – and then, with arms and finger still extended, she moved deosil round the Hele stone to each of the cardinal points in turn, South, West, and finally the Northern portal, effectively sealing
the area. Then, returning to the centre, to the Hele stone, she intoned: “The Seals are in place. The Officers and members will keep vigil until the High Priestess returns.” She then spread herself full length up the stone and with an ease born of long practice she slipped from her body and rose on the inner.
Grim-faced, Merlin waited her coming, and when she stood before him, cold-eyed yet regal and powerful, he said sternly: “You are a stubborn woman, Morgan le Fay, with a closed mind. Two more have died because of your plots and I say that enough is enough.”
She smiled thinly, her expression as grim as his. “If we continue as we are then many more will die before this struggle is over, but the root cause of it lies with you, Merlin, not I.”
He sighed heavily. “I wish you no ill whatsoever, indeed it is my fervent wish that you abandon your opposition and join us in the quest of the Holy Grail.”
“That I will never do for the reasons I have already stated. I will continue to oppose you with every breath in my body and with every power at my disposal, for I believe with all my heart and mind that what you are doing constitutes the most colossal blunder in the whole history of human endeavour. You will fail of your ambition, Merlin, and your failure is likely to plunge humanity into a Dark Age that will cause an abyss between God and Man so vast that it may never be bridged again.”
“If that were true,” said Merlin, “then I would be the most damned human soul of all time.”