The Furor sits on a cinnamon boulder and signs for his guests to take comfort on the verdant sward before him. At his back, the full moon bulges hugely, a plate of cracked ice in the tropical atmosphere.
"Aelle, you are the greatest living warrior among my children of Middle Earth," the Furor declares. "You are strong and wily enough to stand on your own. You owe allegiance to no man, and you serve me well in your conquests—for I have sworn before all the gods that I would have the West Isles for my own. And you—you are the living truth of my oath."
Aelle timidly lowers his head, and inquires, "All-Father—dare I speak before you?"
"Speak—yes! You are my favored child. I will listen to you with my heart."
"All-Father, I am exalted here among these wonders, here in the land of the gods, in the fabled Storm Tree that holds up the worlds. You have shown us many glories. My heart is full. Yet, I am chief from the clan of the Thunderers. When I return to my people, they will ask if I have seen your beloved son, our champion among the gods—Thunder Red Hair."
The Furor bows his head. "You would see my son? Then give me your hands."
Aelle and Cissa exchange astonished looks as the Furor extends his powerful, square hands toward them. Dare they touch a god?
Cissa nods in awe, and they reach out. Instantly, the beauty around them shrivels away, and they veer across a wasteland of sulfur sands and shattered rocks. Beneath a gigantic night of evil stars that flare like cactus flowers, they stop.
"What is this frightful place?" Aelle whispers to his son.
"The Raven's Branch, noble Aelle," Cissa answers. "The topmost bough of the Storm Tree. Above us, behold the Gulf of eternal night. Upon this abyss all creation floats as a bubble in froth."
"Cissa knows." The Furor releases their hands. They stand in red dust among cracked tusks of stone. "And now I will show you a truth that even your clear-eyed seer knows not. These are the gods who cherish me, who love me more than all other gods."
A dune of ash fans away in a polar gust exposing a cobra-hooded cavern. Inside, lanterns dull red as hung hearts shed a mute glow on eight prone bodies whose marmoreal shapes display the colorless, slippery look of statues.
Cissa advances eagerly, recognizing these gods revered in tribal lore. Aelle follows more apprehensively, unhappy that he has been carried so far from the earthly senses he has trusted all his life.
"Sister Mint," Cissa breathes above the husk of a large woman in floral cape and tunic of stitched leaves. "The wife of the Brewer, mother of healing! And here is Blue, the sea god—" His eyes widen to take in the god's proud features and nakedness sleek as a dolphin's.
"And this," Aelle speaks standing before a figure wrapped in a tight cocoon of robes that reveal only a portion of her hawkish face. "This must be the Ravager, the storm-rider, sorceress of the gods."
"Yes." The Furor's volcanic voice grows softer. "Beside her lies my heart's weakness." He nods to a young woman so lovely that staring at her stops their breathing and hurts their chests. "My daughter, Beauty. And alongside, her dear friend, Silver Heart."
Beholding the phantasmal loveliness of Beauty, they stagger backward like men whose heartbeats have forgotten to go. They can look closely no more, and their eyes skim over lordly shapes blue-gray as dawn while the Furor recites their names, "The Dragon Witch, Wonder Smith, and my son, Thunder Red Hair—"
Neither Aelle nor visionary Cissa has any strength left to see the god of their clan in this morbid state, and they avert their eyes. "All-Father! Are they dead?" Cissa asks.
"Not dead, child—asleep." The Furor's one eye swirls with moon-pale watercolors of withheld tears. "They have given me their life strength that I might work magic to fight for the West Isles and all the north lands."
"Fight?" Aelle asks, stunned free of the loveliness that numbed him. "Who would dare fight against you?"
The Furor laughs, bursting with affection for these devoted ones. "Tell him, seer. Tell him of our enemies."
"You know them, fierce Aelle. The rabid souls that must infest others with their worship of death."
"The Christians?" Aelle gasps, not comprehending how those demented souls could challenge so noble a being. "The Man of Sorrows fights you?"
"Not the Man of Sorrows, child. He is merely the latest apparition of my true enemies—the Fire Lords." The one eye squints, sending radial creases upward to his furrowed brow. "Do you know of them?"
"No, All-Father," Aelle says. "Are they the gods of the Christians?"
"They do not call themselves gods," the Furor states, his voice a rumble of disdain. "They say there is one God. Each of the Fire Lords believes he is a messenger of this God, an angelos in the language of the Greeks. But these messengers are older than the Greeks. They came from the Gulf several thousand years ago, long before the Greeks built their temples. They are the radiant ones worshiped in the ancient river kingdoms of Persia and Egypt. They brought the sorcery of numbers and letters to the desert tribes. They caught eternity in a circle, chopped it into sixty parts, and called it time. They worship the Word and enslave people with spells, with written magic that lives beyond individuals and binds whole nations to their insanity. The Fire Lords are the ones who taught people how to build the first cities and how to tame animals and cut the land into the straight lines and boundaries of fields. They erected the first fences, and they are the ones who want to build walls across all of Middle Earth. The Fire Lords are my enemy. The Man of Sorrows is just their latest ploy to enslave the lives of the people with words written in his name."
Aelle raises both fists in pledge. "Then the Fire Lords are my enemies, All-Father."
The Furor nods with satisfaction. "You are as strong an ally to me as these sleeping gods who gave me their strength to fight the Fire Lords, to keep these evil beings out of the north lands."
"When will these sleepers awake?" Cissa asks.
"Soon in the time of the gods—though centuries will pass on Middle Earth before Thunder Red Hair descends again to lead his raiders—his vikingr—against the minions of the Fire Lords." The Furor bends closer, and with him comes the smell of lightning. "For now, I need your help."
"Anything, All-Father," Aelle swears fervently. "How may we serve you?"
"The Fire Lords stole my sword Lightning."
Aelle looks to his son for understanding, and the seer answers his father by saying to the Furor, "The legendary blade fashioned for you by the dwarfs. It is famous in the Lawspeaker's tales of origin. The dwarfs gave it to you when you were forced to disguise yourself as a man and hide in Middle Earth from the wrath of the Old Ones."
"Yes, dear Cissa, that very blade that once protected me now is turned against me." The god's beard tucks in at his mouth as if tasting something bitter. "The Fire Lords stole it from my arsenal, from Brokk, my weapons master and the very dwarf who crafted the blade for me. They have given it to the Christian wizard Merlin. Do you know of him?"
Aelle's eyes widen. "Who on Middle Earth does not, All-Father? He is the wizard who plied his sorcery against the great chieftains Hengist and Horsa. He destroyed them for the Dragon Lord of the Christians. He is an evil creature."
"He is not even a creature," Cissa adds, angrily. "The Lawspeaker says that Merlin is a Dark Dweller from the House of Fog—what the Christians call a demon. They claim that one of their saints tamed him to human form, and he serves now the Man of Sorrows."
"In truth, he is a Dark Dweller named Lailoken," the Furor confirms. "He has all the powers of a Dark Dweller but in human guise, and so he is very dangerous to us. All the more so now that he possesses my sword Lightning."
"Tell us where it is, All-Father," Aelle states boldly, "and we will retrieve it for you."
"If any of my children had such power," the chief of the gods says with a pleased glint in his eye, "it would be you. But the sword Lightning is guarded by the Dragon."
Aelle feels his heart shrivel at the mention of the Dragon, the gargantuan planetary beast that
dwells underground and devours the lives of men and gods alike.
"But the Dragon is asleep, All-Father," Cissa says. "No seer has seen it in fifteen years, and it is not expected to awaken again for a thousand years or more."
"Perhaps—" the Furor says, frowning contemplatively, "or perhaps this is merely a deception of the Dark Dweller Lailoken, who wants to lure me within striking distance of the Dragon's claws. I must be wary, for the Fire Lords are intent on destroying me—and then what will become of my children?"
"If we cannot retrieve the sword Lightning," Aelle asks, puzzled, "then how may we serve you?"
"Brokk lost my sword, and he will recover it," the Furor pronounces. "What I ask of you is to distract the assembly of Celts and Britons who guard the sword. Merlin has installed the weapon on a knoll called Mons Caliburnus. It lies near a fortress-city that he is constructing and has named Camelot. Every fifth summer, the Celtic chieftains and British warlords gather at Camelot to feast and plan their war strategies. This summer is the third such gathering of our enemies in this hateful place. You are to attack them. While they contend with you, Brokk will take back my sword."
Aelle and Cissa stand stunned. The Furor's request is nothing less than a command to forfeit their earthly lives. Though both warriors cherish the glory of battle death, neither finds valor in futile sacrifice for any thing - a piece of land, treasure or a sword, even the Furor's sword. Death is hazard for victory, for domination in combat. To die as a mere distraction, so that a dwarf may steal a sword...
Barely a heartbeat of shocked silence lapses before Aelle, mind racing, swears, "What you ask is already accomplished in my heart, All-Father," and then humbly bows his head, "but the Thunderers and myself, we are only men. How can we fight a Dark Dweller from the House of Fog?"
"I will be with you," the Furor promises. "I will deal directly with Lailoken myself."
"Then happily do we sacrifice our lives against the assembled forces of Celt and Briton," Aelle speaks earnestly, mentally shaping a new stratagem to save himself and his son even as he speaks. "Yet, is this not a task better suited to your berserkers, who yearn to die in battle—for surely none may go against such a formidable host of our enemies and expect to survive? Do the Thunderers not serve you better as destroyers of the cities that blight the West Isles?"
A benign smile nests in the Furor's grandiose beard. "I ask much of you, I know this, my children. Berserkers would serve me better, for they are faithless to Middle Earth and love not terrestrial life with your passion. There are no berserkers in the region where I need them, where you are. They rove to the east, while you are my might in Cymru, the kingdom of the Celts."
"Yes, All-Father," Aelle admits, allowing a tone of contrition to soften his voice, already seeking a new rationale for his survival. "So now I must tell you the shameful reason why we find ourselves in Cymru."
"I already know, my child. My one eye sees much." That fearsome eye screws tighter in his craggy face. "Do not lower your head like sheep. Your youngest son, Fen, is a captive of a Celtic chieftain—Kyner the Christian. To assure Fen's return to the Thunderers, you have been informing Kyner of the raiding plans of Death's Angels and the Sons of Freeze."
Aelle looks up at the god, eyes pleading. "All-Father, forgive me! The Sons of Freeze and Death's Angels squander their Saxon freedom by serving the kings of Picts and Jutes—!"
"Silence, child," he admonishes with profound gentleness. "You have no love of the Foederatus. I know this. Yet, they are my children, too. I hold no ire against you, and I assure you that when you die in battle for me, you and your Thunderers will feast in the Hall of Light among all the heroes of legend from times past and to come."
Aelle bows contritely. All appeals are spent, and he accepts this with the same bravery that first led him into battle. "All-Father, the Thunderers will attack Camelot, as you say."
"As you say," Cissa echoes, staring at his god unbowed and radiant with devotion.
The Furor smiles, and the air goes bright as lightning. The warriors wince and cover their faces, and when they look again, once more they sit in their mortal bodies upon a field of wild grass and pale lavender asters.
Thunder shakes the air, and rain sweeps over the forest in sheets and crosses the field toward them like fragrant, translucent beings swimming down from the sky.
Aelle and Cissa look at each other and laugh and cry at once as the gray veils of rain wrap around them—for they are dead men now, dead men who must yet bear the burden of their lives.
Chapter 5: Merlin
Merlin casts a lingering look over his shoulder at Camelot. Its skeletal derrick towers and scaffolds hold the empty iris blue of the sky where someday soon, he prays, there will be spires and parapets. He dislikes having to leave the construction of the citadel unattended, especially now that workers are dressing the stones that will secure the secret passageways. A forgetting spell will easily wipe memory from the minds of the builders, he decides. But before that, he must make certain the portal stones will fit with the necessary precision. And then, there is the matter of the roof beams, whose raising he must supervise to assure that they are properly anchored to the foundation posts.
He pinches the bridge of his nose to relieve the tension between his eyes and turns to the sun among the western mountains. If he is to make the journey into the hollow hills, he must abandon all these problems and depart at once.
He sighs, puts his weight on his tall staff, and steps off the gravel path into the sedge that climbs sloping terrain toward sunset. He munches a wizened apple as he walks, lulled by river sounds from the gorge below. Briefly, he glimpses at the far end of the valley the hamlet of Cold Kitchen, with its narrow lanes and red tile rooftops. Then, the tree-crowned hills close around him, and only the weak colors of twilight distinguish the pathways of the forest.
By that dusty light, the wizard advances slowly toward creaturely shapes among the shadows, which he is able to discern only with his strong eye. The faerie live among shadows, and once his eyes adjust to the dim shine of the night forest, he sees them.
They are pieces of moonlight, though no moon shines. Quietly, they guide Merlin through the nocturnal distances, sometimes flitting so close that he can see their nightgowns of fog, glowworm bodies and sticky halos. The wizard knows they have no faces, no bodies either; they exist purely as designs of energy, tiny sentient waveforms that sometimes migrate into animal bodies. As a demon, he used to smash them like flies because of their mindless joy. Now he is grateful for their help finding his way into the underworld.
Merlin seeks the roots of the World Tree, the Storm Tree, the Cosmic Tree that the north tribes call Yggdrasil. It is actually the sprawling magnetic field of the planet. Its lines of force arc like immense boughs high over the earth, and there, gigantic electrical beings exist—the gods of human lore.
The Celtic gods, known as the Daoine Sid, once dwelt there, too, in ages past when they and the Celts dominated Europe. A millennium ago, the Fauni, the Greek and Roman gods, drove them out of the Tree and into the subterranean regions where the planet's magnetic field coils like mighty roots. Down there in the netherworld, in the presence of the terrifying electrical Dragon that dwells at the core of the earth, the Sid struggle to survive.
What is worse, to keep the Dragon from devouring them during its restless wakeful spells, the Daoine Sid must on occasion feed it the radiant bodies of other gods, giants, trolls, dwarfs, and even humans. Thus, to be lured into the hollow hills by the pale people is a doomful fate.
Merlin is not concerned. He knows that the Dragon has recently succumbed to a long slumber from which it will not rouse for another thousand years. The wizard's only anxiety is finding his way among the intricate and immense rootcoils of the World Tree, and he is grateful that the Sid have sent the faerie to direct him.
Like jittery fireflies, they lead Merlin onward through grainy darkness, toward a streak of sunset that eventually expands to a flame-woven horizon. An incand
escent palace of slender butyl blue columns and fireball domes rises from its midst.
This is the court of the Daoine Sid's king, Someone Knows the Truth. Merlin has been here before, and he walks without hesitation into the blazing hall and toward the flaring throne, upon which sits a massive monarch with the head of an elk.
The wizard approaches boldly, unfazed by the splendor of the palace and the bestial appearance of its lord. Everything in the branches and roots of the Great Tree is illusory—electrical weavings in the brain of the perceiver. However, the power expressed here is entirely real, and before it Merlin sinks to one knee and, with sincere reverence, removes his conical hat.
"Majesty," he begins, "I have come before you with an urgent plea ..."
"Don't blow empty words in my face, Lailoken," the elk king responds gruffly, his voice rumbling like surf. "Uther Pendragon belongs to me yet. Even as we speak, he prances blithely in the Happy Woods, not a Christian thought in his soul, I assure you. The Piper's music has purged him of all dread of sin and damnation, and he is as giddy now as any Celtic sprite that ever drank starlight and danced on moonbeams."
"My lord, I have not come before you to plead for Uther Pendragon but for his son, Arthor."
"Arthor? The youth has the soul of Cuchulain," the elk god reminds him with annoyance. "What greater gift could I have given him? What more dare you ask of me?"
"Protection for him," the wizard speaks, eyes downcast. "His half sister Morgeu covets for her children Arthor's high status and intends to murder him. My woe is this—Morgeu's sorcery is capable of what she threatens."
King Someone Knows the Truth waves him away. "You are a wizard, Lailoken. Surely, you have the power to guard him."
"My power is less than I would like, majesty. I have invested all that I can command into building Camelot, into creating a kingdom that will endure."
The Eagle and the Sword (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 2) Page 5