by Andre Norton
“Lord,” he answered, “I am no sorcerer. And I ask no more of you than to be allowed to depart to my own place.”
He thought he detected a trace of curiosity in the other’s glance.
“You are of the blood of Nyren, a worthy fighter and a loyal man. And you are of an age for the taking of arms. If you wish, I can place you among my troops. Only no more prophecies or the addling of men by words.”
“Lord, you offer me a great honor.” Myrddin bowed his head for a moment to acknowledge the courtesy the other had extended. “But I am not a man of the sword. My service to you will lie in other ways.”
“What other ways? Do you claim to be a bard with the power of words? Boy, you lack the long years for the learning a bard must have. And I am no king to send a talker rather than a troop against my enemies. I will not name you coward, for it seems by all accounts that you stood in mortal danger and came forth unharmed, by the use of your wits alone. But in this hour it is weapon against weapon, and the Saxons do not understand the power of words such as some of our people will listen to.”
“Lord, you say sorcery, but there is in me sometimes the gift of foretelling. Do you also claim that to be wholly evil?”
Ambrosius was quiet for a long moment, then he replied in a lower, more meditative tone.
“No, I do not deny the truth which lies in foretelling. But it is an evil in this manner: should a man know that victory lies before him, then he shall be less desperate in battle; if he knows defeat faces him, then already his heart is that much gone out of him and he will be the quicker to cry off from attack. Therefore I do not wish to know what lies beyond this moment, nor do I wish to consult any augury, even those the Legions did in their day. So I think you are right, Myrddin of the House of Nyren. If that is the service you would offer me, I must refuse it, and it would be better that you do go to your own place.
“What you have done, laid the prophecy upon the forces of Vortigen in our favor, for that our thanks. And we shall strive mightily that the red dragon wins his battle, without sorcery. Call upon our people for a horse, for supplies, but get you from us and soon.”
Thus Myrddin, who had gone out of the mountains a captive and a bewildered, frightened boy, returned into those fastnesses still a boy in body, but in spirit and mind another. For he who has called upon such Powers leaps in that single moment from youth to manhood, and is never afterward the same. He carried enough provisions in his saddlebag to be able to avoid the clan house, riding straight to the cave instead.
He loosed his mount in the small valley beneath the slope on which the cave lay and climbed to edge through the crack and come down into the place of the mirror. When he reached that point, he was aware at once that something about the cave had altered, though at first sighting all was the same—the lines of light still flickered across the installations, the mirror faced him as it ever had.
That strength of will which had sustained him through his journey—from the town where Vortigen had been driven into flight and where the forces of Ambrosius were now camped—deserted him. He sank down on the seat before the mirror, deeply burdened with the fatigue of his journey, empty-minded and spent
Yet uneasiness pricked at him. Even in this secret place all was not well. He fumbled with his saddlebags, found dry bread and a small leather bottle of sour wine. Dribbling the wine on the bread, he ate only because he knew that his body needed the food. It was not the hearty fare he had shared with the soldiers, but it was all he had now.
As Myrddin chewed he looked at the mirror, seeing his own reflection once again: small, dark, with tumbled hair, a face in which, now that he looked more carefully, the planes differed from those of his fellows. Had that difference come from his Sky father? He had never seen, among the wealth of pictures the mirror had shown during the years of his instruction, any other person.
Wearily the boy chewed and swallowed, but now and again he glanced around him. For, though he could see the cave plainly, more than half of it also being reflected in the mirror, the feeling that he was not alone persisted. It was like a trace of some scent on the air. So he found himself sniffing as if, like one of the great hunting hounds, he might uncover the intruder.
Once his hunger was satisfied, Myrddin rose to begin a thorough search between the squares and cylinders, tracing each possible opening between them back to the stone of the walls. There was nothing, no one.
But if the intruder was not here now, had there been someone earlier? Though how he could sense that he did not understand. Back once more on the bench before the mirror, he subsided, his head in his hands. For the time being he had lost that sense of purpose which had drawn him on, and he shrank dully from any thought of the future.
There was a sharp, ringing sound, as a piece of bronze might sing when struck by another bit of metal. Myrddin raised his head. The mirror was awakening—his reflection had vanished from its surface. In place there was the familiar swirl of mist. That deepened, thickened . . .
He was staring at a girl. Her body was held tensely and she had the attitude of one listening for a sound she dreaded. Behind her lay a countryside he knew well, the slope which reached to the cave entrance.
But this was no maid from the clan house! Her body was very slight and thin, not yet showing the curves of womanhood. Her skin was pale, the color of sea-bleached ivory, against which her hair was a cloud of dark, but a dark in which queer red lights played as if the sun sought out its match in it.
Her face was nearly triangular, the cheekbones wide apart, the chin almost pointed. Myrddin realized suddenly that the planes of that other countenance were similar to his own.
She wore a single simple garment fashioned as if a square of green had had a hole cut in its center, through which she had thrust her head, and then she had drawn in the folds about her middle with a wide belt which was formed of chains of a silvery metal braided together. Ankle boots latched with the same metal covered her feet. But she had no bracelets or necklaces.
Now she raised long-fingered hands to push the wind-tossed hair away from her eyes and at that moment she no longer gazed about her but stared straight from the mirror at Myrddin. He was startled, half expecting her to see him. But there was no flash of recognition in her eyes.
Simple as was her garment, young as she appeared to be and odd as she looked in the wilderness of this mountain place, yet there was about her an air of authority such as the daughter of a chieftain might have. Myrddin pushed forward on his bench, intent on conning her features, for she interested him strangely, more than any girl or woman he had seen. He wondered who she was and how she had come to be on the mountain. Was she some visitor at the clan house? Yet never did the girls wander far from that haven of safety, not in these days when the land might well hold war bands on the prowl.
It was then that the voice which was so familiar to him but whose source he had never discovered, unless it issued in some manner from the mirror itself, spoke;
“This is Nimue and she is Merlin’s bane, for she is of the Others.”
“What others?” Myrddin was jolted into demanding. The mirror voice still called him by that strange name. He had come to accept it, but to himself he was always Myrddin.
“Those who would not raise man again,” returned the voice flatly. And after a moment’s silence it began anew:
“Listen well, Merlin, for the evil approaches and you must be armed against it. In the ancient days when our people came freely to this world there arose a mighty nation, great beyond the dreams of men living now. That knowledge which was of our gathering we offered freely to your people, those who could open their minds to it And men prospered. Their daughters wived with the Sky Bom. Children born from such unions were mighty heroes and people of Power. Nor did we then realize that within your species lay a flaw.
“But there were others like us who also took ships between the stars. And it was not to their minds that those of your kind should rise to greatness and knowledge. Thus they ca
me secretly into your world and there they found the flaw, that your kind were prone to violence. They then used this flaw to their own purposes. And there followed such wars as your breed now has no knowledge of. For such were fought with lightning drawn from the skies and forces which overturned mountains, making land into sea and sea into land.
“Many of us died in those battles and those we had taught died also. Then the Dark Ones withdrew to the skies once more, exulting that man would not rise now to threaten their own rule, but would remain a brutish thing, unlearned and unlearning. Some of our children survived, and they attempted to keep alive the knowledge. But everything they had depended upon, such machines as you see about you now, had been swept away in the disasters of the earth. Metal could not be fashioned and man once more turned to stone and the bones of his prey for tools and weapons. Those who had begun their lives in great cities ended them in rude caves, with nothing but their hands and such knowledge as they could remember locked within their heads.
“Those of us who would have come again could not, for the lovers of the Dark controlled the roads between the stars. And if we ventured forth we were harried and destroyed. So passed ages beyond counting by your species. To all things comes a time of decay, however, and our enemies began to dwindle, though we, too, had lost very much. But we had not forgotten those of our own left helpless on this world and, gathering all that we had left, we fashioned certain ships which could cross the void. These had to be small and so could not transport us, but they could carry certain elements of life within them. And if any reached its goal, what it carried could start the renewal of our race. We launched these seed ships with hope, for the ships of the Dark Ones had not been seen in our heavens for a long time.
“At last one of our ships came to earth. But the beacon which drew it here was very old and the forces within it so limited that it was by happy chance only that it was still alive enough to bring the seed ship down.
“Thus were you born, Merlin. And you are set an early task, for we must have peace in which to grow again. To enforce this peace you are to be our hands and our liege man. Now the beacon which brought that first ship here is dead. But there stands a greater beacon in this land, one which if properly set alight once more will draw all of our fleet to it. And to rekindle that is also your task.
“There is now this threat: even as we left beacons to bring us once again into your world, so did those Dark Ones station alarms and similar drawing points. And one such has been alerted. From the seeding left within that has come this Nimue. She seeks to keep you from your task. Be warned, for all the cunning of the Dark Ones is being taught her. And she will have forces which may in the end match your own. She has already come here, drawn by the energy of this place, though she has not found what she seeks, for the defenses placed here still hold high. But she will search you out and what you will do she will try to undo, to keep man lesser than what he can be.
“Two duties have you, one to bring full Power back into the Great Beacon. And that is a mighty task, for a part of what was once there has long since been taken overseas to the Western Island. Some who had a faint remnant of the old knowledge recognized the Power in it and wished to try to use it though, having only a small part of learning, they could not do so.
“Your second duty is to provide such a leader for this land as to bring all its present quarrels to naught, and establish a time of peace in which we can come again, meeting with man and working together.
“These are what you must do, and Nimue will prevent you if she can. Be warned, Merlin, for you are our hope and the time grows short wherein this may be accomplished. Fail and the Dark shall utterly encompass your world and man shall be left to brutish life without the sun of knowledge!”
The likeness of Nimue faded. In her stead was another picture, that of a place of great standing stones, some capped with huge lengths from one rough pillar to the next. And Myrddin knew this place, not from his own seeking, but because in the years past Lugaid had spoken of it
It had been built by those fabled strangers who had held this land before Myrddin’s own people had spread across the seas and settled here. It remained a sacred place, not only for its forgotten builders, but for those who had come later. Here were tied certain powers of the sun, so those with the knowledge could venture here and learn secrets of the stars. Even now men who yearned for enlightenment dwelt nearby, and it was here Myrddin believed Lugaid had gone after the death of Nyren.
“This is the Great Beacon,” intoned the voice. Then that picture wavered and was gone. Myrddin sensed that he was now totally alone, his tasks having been made plain to him, the warning given.
The boy had much to wonder over. How could he hope to return a stone as great as those he had looked upon, by himself, from the Western Isle? He knew it was impossible. To enlist others in such action also seemed impossible. Who now, in the midst of war, with this country torn asunder, would listen to him? Nor could he tell the whole story, for it was, he decided shrewdly, past the credence of all but those such as Lugaid.
Lugaid . . .
Myrddin wondered what influence the Druid could wage with the kings and leaders of the host His own memory of the man suggested that Lugaid was not one to be regarded lightly. But whatever he was now right in that accounting or if he had just built Lugaid up in his own mind, he could not tell. However, it would seem that his first step was to go to the Place of the Sun and there seek out the Druid. Also, seeing the actual site was better than envisioning it in the mirror.
Having thought out his plan, the boy sought an opening between two of the boxes and, wrapped in his cloak, settled himself to sleep. He slept but his dreams were troubled, for it seemed that he was shut into a great box, yet the walls of that box were as clear as a mountain stream, and through them he could see what happened.
Nimue stood before the box and she was laughing. Her bands moved in that sign of protection against sorcery which he had witnessed so many times in his childhood. He knew that he was her prisoner, yet in him was a mighty need to break forth and be about some demanding task.
Though he beat on the unseen walls of that box until his flesh was sore and bloody, still he could not win his freedom. And always he was haunted by the knowledge that he was failing in something of great and lasting importance.
Then the dream changed and there was Lugaid before him. The Druid lay sleeping on a bedding made of deerskin and dried leaves. But Myrddin stooped above him and laid his hand on the sleeper’s forehead between his eyes. And he heard himself say: “I shall come.”
At his words Lugaid’s eyes opened to meet Myrddin’s gaze. There was recognition in the Druid’s face. And he spoke in turn, or at least his lips moved, but Myrddin could catch no meaning though he strained to hear.
Between them rose a wreathing of mist. Lugaid, seeing that, shrank away, motioning with his hand as if he would ward off some evil. The mist twisted to form a shadow face. Once more Myrddin saw Nimue laughing. Then he awoke.
He had half expected to find that strange girl standing over him as he had stood over the sleeping Lugaid. But he was alone and only the steady hum of the squares on either side of him broke the silence. But he knew well what was to be done. He must go to the Place of the Sun and make sure during the going that he was not trailed by anyone.
First he must have supplies and a sword. Though he was no trained warrior, he knew a little of the handling of a weapon and he was going into debatable territory where a lone traveler could have his throat slit for either the mountain pony he rode or the cloak on his back.
So, leading the horse he had brought from Ambrosius’ camp, Myrddin went down the mountain . . . to find desolation. For fire and sword had been here, days ago by the coldness of the ashes. Fighting nausea, he searched among the ruins, avoiding charred bodies, the dead men who had defended the walls. Too small a handful. . . . He wondered if Vortigen’s kidnappers had been part of a larger band with orders to make very sure the clan of Nyren w
as wiped from the earth. There were only one or two women’s bodies, and he guessed that they and the children had been taken off for sale as slaves.
But he found Julia. She had a broken spear still clasped in her death hold. By the signs she had died quickly; of a sword thrust, he thought. Bleak-eyed, he brought together the dead he could find into a shed still left standing. Bags dribbling grain lay there and of those he built a bier on which he put those of the kin, Julia at the very end.
Then he sought out a tinderbox and coaxed a spark to fire the bier, for he did not have the strength to bury them decently and he could not leave them for the carrion-eaters. As the flames rose, he gathered together some moldy bread, a hunk of mouse-nibbled cheese and a water bottle he would fill at the stream. He did not look again at the flames reaching skyward. All he had known in the past was gone. No evidence of his childhood was left him, only the will to bring about the orders given in the cave.
So Myrddin rode away into a bitter dawning where the storm clouds were fast gathering. He breathed deeply, trying to drive from his lungs the smell of the clan house, just as he endeavored to close out of his mind what he had found there.
Even through the rain he rode forward, welcoming the wash of the storm against his body, because this was a thing of nature and not some ugliness of man’s actions. And he wondered about the story the mirror had told. Had it really been true that man had known peace and such knowledge to maintain it with his fellows? If that was true, and he had no reason to doubt what he had been told, then if he could do anything to help return to that golden age, he would do it gladly.
Within him grew a deep hatred, not of those who had wrought the destruction at the clan house, for that was the nature of raiders. But rather his mind raged against those others who ranged the stars and had such powers as he could not even imagine, and yet who would withhold from man the wisdom to make him more than brute beast.
Were the Dark Ones jealous of the others, those who had chosen the way of earth? Or was it fear that moved them? Did they foresee that mankind was their enemy in some manner even as the wildcat and the hound were enemies from their births? If that was so, what quality could possibly lay within man to awaken a fear so deep among those who were his great superiors? Myrddin longed to be able to ask all this of the mirror. He would when he returned.