by Andre Norton
No birds twittered in this woods now. Merlin could no longer pick up the smallest hint of any animal life-force. When no other manifestation rose to confront or threaten him, he began to believe that Nimue’s image had been random only, set up in simple expectation that some day he might venture here, and was not keyed to this one exploit of his.
The moon necklace she had worn—that he knew. Not from any teaching of the mirror, rather from the legends of his mother’s people. It was the sign of one of the three who were chosen in the old days to serve the Earth Mother: Maid there always was, with the new moon for her ranking, Mother, with the full moon, Old woman with her waning orb. Why had Nimue chosen such an archaic symbol? This countryside was sparsely settled and he knew that the people here might well cling to the old ways. It could be that many, perhaps the women chiefly, secretly worshiped the Old Goddess. At that thought a small unexplainable shiver ran down his spine. This matched that faint scent of evil he had detected in the herb chamber, a hint of something that was a warning, but so veiled a one he could not understand it.
Merlin breathed deeply with relief as he came at last out from under the daunting canopy of the trees, but the sun would not be with him much longer. This time he got well away from the fringe of the woods before he sat down, his damp breeches and boots clammy on his body, to eat and drink.
Tonight there would be a full moon, ripe and yellow-white in the sky. Merlin licked crumbs from his lips. He was very tired; the outflow of energy which had obeyed his will to destroy Nimue’s crown had closed down on him. To go on when he felt so weak and tired was folly. Still, even in this open, he was not easy of mind. He sat cross-legged, his wand lying on his knees, and realized he was listening, listening with a fervor he could not understand. Listening for what? Who?
Twilight faded and still he sat there, every sense alert. He often stared at the black blot of the woods, but it was not from there that this feeling of dark awareness came. He also watched the slopes of open land around him. He was sure they had once been cleared by the hands of men and then abandoned to the wilds, so that shrubs and bushes had begun to reclaim the forest’s territory.
Merlin heard the bark of a fox, the rustle of some flying thing swooping low near him, perhaps to make a hunting kill. The night was alive again, but that life was normal to it. Why then did he sit waiting?
Now and then he glanced down at the wand. Its white length was barely discernible, and the gem and metal on its point did not gleam. He began to believe that whatever threatened was not a weapon of Nimue’s armory, at least no off-world one. There were times when he tried to compose himself to sleep, the light drowse he had known the night before, but that inner sentinel his mind had set refused to be ignored.
The moon rose, as whole as a piece of Roman gold tossed into the sky to overawe the stars with its light. Then, very far away, there began a disturbance which Merlin could not hear; he could only feel it like a vibration through earth and air picked up by his inner sense, not any outer one. It grew stronger until at last he heard as well as felt it.
There was a chanting which raised the hairs along his neck, made him breathe more quickly, his heart beat faster. Though he dealt with words of Power and knew what could channel through them, still this was wholly alien to his own forces. There was something utterly strange and wild in that wail in which he could not yet distinguish any words. Old, old, said his own knowledge, back, far back. This was nothing of the Star People, but entirely of a young earth before the coming of their ships.
The chanting broke into a series of shrill yelps. At last Merlin knew.
There was a hunt up under the moon, and he was the quarry. The goddess whose symbol Nimue’s illusion had worn also had her dark side. To that portion of her character men had shed blood—the blood of their own kind. She had two faces, that goddess, as well as three ages, and the second face was turned to the outer Darkness, which men had always feared and tried to propitiate.
The Great Mother—and the Great Destroyer—of mankind!
Yet yielding to atavistic fear meant utter defeat. Merlin swallowed twice, working to calm the beating of his heart, to marshal what he knew, the forces he himself controlled. There must be an answer—and that was not to run. For if he gave way to that...
He shook his head. There was an answer! It lingered in the far part of his mind, overlaid by all the mirror had taught him. This was not of the mirror, however, it was of his own world alone.
The Great Mother and her priestesses who watered the earth with the blood of men—
The Great Mother and—
From that far-hidden place in his memory Merlin dragged what Lugaid had once told him very long ago. The Mother had her rival. In latter years that rival became her mate: the Horned God, to whom hunters paid tribute that they might ever find the herds they preyed on. The Horned God . . . and how greatly did these priestesses hold him in awe?
There was little time for self-questioning. He could either run, which his nature forbade and which he knew would condemn him anyway, or he could stand. In his standing, he would have to hold the strongest illusion he had tried for years. It had to be strong, for the power of the Mother was not like any force he had faced before.
Merlin rose to his feet. He deliberately shut out as best he could the screams of the huntresses. He steadied his mind, concentrating, hoping with every breath he drew that his command over his own powers had not been too devastated by what he had wrought at the keep in the lake. There was no mirror fronting him now in which he could check the illusion. He could only hold the picture in his mind.
They were close enough now so he could see their white bodies darting in and out among the scrub bushes, the tossing of their hair. Like Nimue, they wore no clothing, but had necklaces of acorns. And the pack was of all ages, girls scarcely into puberty, matrons with sagging breasts which had nursed children, hags so old their skin was seamed leather under the moon.
As they drew in on him, now, their faces showing only the frenzy which was the dark aspect of their goddess, their clamor staled. There was an avid blood lust in their eyes, just so had they once gathered to slay the Winter King. Merlin must not allow himself to think of anything but the protection he had woven for himself.
The first of the pack came within leaping distance, but now they faltered, their stares fixed, then wondering. If his own powers worked they saw no man, rather a dark figure bearing stag horns on his raised head—a figure which displayed no fear of their goddess-frenzy because the Horned Hunter was himself of the earth, the sky, the land about them.
The leader of the pack snarled, a tall woman with pendulous breasts who wore about her loins a thong supporting the disk of the full moon. Twice she started to reach for him with her long-nailed fingers, crooked to claw the flesh from his bones, but she still did not strike. Her following hung farther back, glancing uneasily from their priestess to Merlin.
He raised his wand, though the star things had no power against such as these. Yet with that in his hand Ms confidence was greater. Now he spoke:
“You do not hunt me, women of the Goddess.” He did not make that a question but a statement. “You may call the earth to answer you, to take the seed into it, to conceive, to bear the fruits of full harvest. But I command that which roams about the earth. Behold—”
With the wand he pointed to his left. There stood snarling the great Dire Wolf, a hound such as no living man had ever seen. And to the right he pointed, so that there crouched a giant cat with long fangs, and it hissed even as the wolf growled.
The women behind the priestess started back. But she stood her ground, and her teeth showed in a snarl as open as that of the cat’s.
“Hunter,” she spat, “do not try to oppose the Mother!”
“I am not a hunter,” Merlin replied, “I am the Hunter. The Mother knows me for I, too, am of her breed. I am no Spring King to share her bed for but a season. Look upon me, Priestess! I am of the wild kind and, as in the wild kind, s
o does my wrath rise! You serve your Mother—I do not bow knee at any shrine of hers. Thus between us lies a balance of power, each equal with the other. Is this thing not so?”
Very reluctantly the priestess inclined her head. But she did not surrender her fury.
“We hunt when the Mother is threatened,” she stated.
“Do I threaten her then, Priestess?”
For the first time she looked uncertain. “Perhaps—perhaps you are not the one we seek.”
“Yet it is to me you have brought your pack,” he countered. “I mean your lady no wrong, for both she and I serve the powers of earth life. Seek your man elsewhere, Priestess.”
She stared straight at him, puzzlement on her broad face. Then she backed away, her women scattering behind her. Merlin watched them go. He had no doubt that Nimue had somehow been at the bottom of this abortive attack. Had the Lady of the Lake brought back one of the oldest beliefs of all to cement new numbers of devoted followers to her?
The women were gone and once more he could hear their bare feet thudding against the earth around the bushes. Plainly they were indeed casting about for another trail. He hoped no wayfarer was abroad in this wasteland tonight for he was sure that, once balked of what they thought was their prey, they would take an added vengeance on any they found.
Was this how the Star Lords of his half kin first presented themselves to men, taking on some illusion of an earth god? He could almost believe that he had only followed a pattern of contact devised very long ago. Simple men needed symbols to tie themselves to their belief in the great Power which was beyond any man’s description. And there had been many forms of gods walking this earth. An ancient Sky Lord might have assumed the form of one—that would be the easiest way to make men listen, to direct them into new ways of living and thought.
Merlin had already relinquished the illusion with which he had clothed himself this night. Now he set out through the moon-and-shadow-checkered land to follow the old road, to be away from this place as soon as possible, drawing on the dregs of his strength to keep walking.
It was three days before Merlin saw the high rise of Camelot’s hill before him. He was very tired and hungry, though he had broken his fast at a shepherd’s hut that morning. The man had little news, except a rumor that the High King ailed and kept to his chamber. So Arthur still played his role. But when Merlin came nearer to Camelot he saw a party of horsemen spurring down the slope at a pace that suggested some need for haste. When they had gone, Merlin made what speed he could up to the outer wall of half earth, half stone.
There were twice as many guards at the entrance, and within a bustle of men were preparing to march. The first sentry swung his spear up crosswise, barring Merlin’s passage.
“Stand!” the man commanded.
“You know me,” Merlin countered. “Why do you this, fellow?”
“By Lord Cei’s orders, none is to enter—”
“Then send a message to Lord Cei,” Merlin returned. “I am not one to be kept waiting thus.”
The man seemed undecided and there was a shadow of hostility on his face. However, one of his fellows did go off, and Merlin settled his shoulders against the firm wall to wait with what patience he could summon. He was eager to know what had happened. That Cei gave the orders here—that either meant Arthur still played his role or—Merlin tried to list the factors which might have gone wrong with their plan.
The messenger was already returning. “You are to come to Lord Cei,” he told Merlin shortly, using no courtesy in that command. Nor did Merlin ask anything of the fellow who stalked by his side through the enclosure.
All the signs were of war. Saxons? Had there been some unlooked-for invasion during his absence? He kept his ears open but he could gather little from the shouted orders and general talk of the men.
Then he mounted the inner stairs of the palace to a balcony room where Cei stood by the outer window frowning out at the ramparts. He turned quickly at Merlin’s coming and his scowl did not lighten.
“Arthur?” Merlin made a question of that name.
Cei’s scowl deepened. “How near you are to traitor, bard,” he said menacingly, “I do not yet know. When I learn ...” He held out a hand between them and slowly curled his fingers into a hard fist. “If I find it to be as I suspect, so shall 1 take your throat and crush the life out of you—slowly!”
“It would save time,” Merlin pointed out, “if you would tell me what has happened. When I left the King was playing ill for purposes of his own—”
Cei showed his teeth wolfishly in what was far from any smile.
“So he told me. But look upon him now, healer. And if you can indeed heal, then do so speedily!”
Nimue! Merlin nearly said the name out loud. Perhaps he and Arthur had been defeated in trying to keep her from her stronghold. Poison was a handy weapon and Nimue knew her herbs well—those which were baneful, too—as he had sniffed in the tower room.
He had already turned again to the door. “I will see him now.”
If Cei had tried to stop him he would have struck the younger man down, for Merlin carried an icy fear which armed him doubly. If Arthur died . . . !
So once more he came into the King’s chamber. Bleheris rose from where he had crouched by the bed. He, too, turned a bleak face in Merlin’s direction. But all Merlin had eyes for was the man on the bed.
Arthur’s face was not flushed by any pseudo-fever this time. Rather it wore a sunken look and the skin seemed gray; it might almost have been a dead man lying there. Merlin went to work instantly, all his healer instincts aroused.
The King’s body was chill, too chill. Merlin called for stones to be heated and wrapped, put about him as he lay. Next he used his sixth sense, and that recoiled immediately. Though the fell symptoms he saw might well come from some ailment of the body, it was surely the evil of some possessive hold which kept the King prisoner.
Cei watched and now he demanded: “What is it? Yesterday when the Lady Nimue departed he was well and able once again. This morning—” He flung out his hands, his face twisted with pain. Though Cei seldom showed his feelings outwardly Merlin knew that the tie between him and his foster brother ran deep and clear. “Then that nithling, that stinking traitor—”
“He is under ensorcellment,” Merlin answered the first question. “And he must be swiftly awakened thereit.”
“You can do that?”
“With certain remedies, aye. Let me go to my chamber, but you stay here. Allow no one but the two of you near him.” He nodded to the Pict now. “I shall be as quick as I can!”
Alive and well when Nimue departed, he thought as he strode along the hall. Then perhaps she had placed on the King one of those delayed mind-orders which would strike when she was gone. What else Cei had said did not hold Merlin’s attention now. He must save Arthur!
In his own chamber he chose hurriedly from his supplies, gathering small jars into a rush basket. And he also carried his wand with him as he returned to the King’s chamber. Once there he sent Bleheris for a pot of boiling water, then had the Pict set up a brazier into which, on a bed of live coals, Merlin tossed leaves of various sorts he hurriedly culled from his selections. An aromatic smoke arose while Merlin brewed a tankard of liquid with the water.
“His sword—” He turned to Cei. “Where is his sword?”
It was Bleheris who answered, not with words but by scuttling across the room to fetch the sheathed blade from behind a chest.
“That one came hunting,” he said as he put the sword into Merlin’s hands. “But he did not find it.”
As Merlin drew the sword and the firelight caught the blade, turning it into a shimmering bar of light, he asked of Cei: “Modred—is this nithling you speak of Modred?”
“Aye.” Cei’s voice was hot with fury. “He tried to put his will on the lords because the King ailed. They would not swear to him. Then—then he wooed the Queen. And she listened to him! In the night she rode off with Modred,
and men who saw her go said she went willingly. Faugh! She is near twice his years and yet she colored like a maid when he looked at her. She deems Arthur as good as dead and she would still be Queen! What will you do now?”
“I summon our lord’s presence back. A part of him strays in a strange place and it is a place which is death to man. Now be silent!”
Merlin raised the sword until the point rested lightly, tip only, on Arthur’s forehead above and between his eyes. Though both Cei and Bleheris listened and this was not meant for the ears of common men, he began to chant. His eyes were closed as he tried not to believe that he stood in the familiar chamber of the King, but rather ranged in another place to which someone, doubtless Nimue, had banished Arthur.
There was a kind of nothingness, though odd crooked dazzles of light still ran through it. Each of those flashes was a personality which had either chosen to enter this limbo or had been banished here. Merlin’s chant rang, not as words, but rather as muted sounds. With that a path of light also spread out and out from Merlin’s own stand here. The sword was a pointer he could use in his search to locate Arthur.
Merlin began to move along that path of light while the dazzles drew back or fled away. But one red-gold flash was touched and held in spite of frenzied contortions. Seeing that, Merlin changed the flow of words. Earlier the words had been of far-seeking, now they formed an imperative summons.
Down the path of sword light came that wriggling figure, fighting because the compulsion to remain here had been set upon it Merlin’s will must defeat that compulsion. He commanded, as one who had full right to do so. Into that command Merlin poured all his concern for Arthur, his belief in the other and the mission which they both shared.
Back drew that fighting fragment of twisted light. It was fairly caught and held by the power of the sword. Merlin released his own hold on that strange far country to open his eyes.
He was never sure if he actually saw that last flicker of light slide down the sword blade to the King’s head, but he heard Arthur’s groan and saw his head move a fraction on the pillow. He had won.