The Serpent and the Grail (The Perilous Order of Camelot)

by Attanasio, A. A.

  Merlin smiled approvingly. "What you see before you is an electrical resonator. Surely, you are familiar with harmonics—the simultaneous combination of musical tones that are pleasing to the ear? Such harmony is possible also among the electrical properties I revealed to you earlier."

  "The cold and quenchless fire of flowing electrons may be harmonized to other such currents?" the scribe asked through a frown. "Harmonized as singing voices do harmonize in lofty relationships of chord and pitch in a choir?"

  "Precisely. Our bodies are electrical. The Earth itself is electrical. And the air and the oceans and the Sun. All atoms in the world about us relate by electrostatic force."

  '"Atoms and the void'—from the mouth of Democritus, as you have fully expounded to me." Athanasius leaned back against an elm's stolid trunk, eyes glazed, searching inward for comprehension. "The physical world all about us, as well as our own corporeal forms, are, of a great majority, void. Atoms, tiny beyond sensate perception, float in soft effulgence upon the void, most tenuous."

  "Most tenuous, indeed, Athanasius. We are almost entirely void and would easily pass through the ground and each other like clouds if not for the electrostatic force in the enormous spaces between the atoms. It is that force that Camelot is designed to work upon." Merlin gestured proudly at the bartizans and spires of the citadel. "The architecture resonates specifically with the electromagnetic field of the planet—the field that the gods reckon as the World Tree, Yggdrasil. The dodecahedral towers have chambers designed to harmonize with the highest branches of the Tree, far above the Earth, while the grotto is a resonance cell for the roots of the Tree. The courtyards, the terraced levels of the ramparts, and the battlements correspond with the intermediate strata of Yggdrasil."

  "Like unto a portal to Yggdrasil is Camelot." Athanasius pinched his lower lip while he mulled this over. "Science ordains that the very atoms of our bodies lie suspended upon the void by the contrary powers of electricity whereupon like charges repel and opposites attract. How then does Camelot serve as a portal? I am vexed to understand."

  "There are secret passages in the fortress that only I know of, for I designed them." The wizard watched the scribe rocking his jaw, trying to digest what he heard. "These passages open to Yggdrasil at precise times, when the electrical field of the Earth is appropriately amplified or diminished by the energies of the Sun and the Moon and their alignment with the planets."

  The legate shook his head. "This smacks too much of astrology's heresy with its beneficent and malignant stars."

  "Harmonics, Athanasius. Above our heads is an immense sea of electrical energy created by the solar wind that strips electrons from the atoms of the atmosphere and generates a powerful charge. The alignment of Sun and Moon have much to do with the disposition of this charge, and I have shaped Camelot to take full advantage of the potential difference between the Earth and this electrical sea in the atmospheric heights." He knelt on the ground and swept dead leaves from the loamy earth. In the soil, he began to sketch schematics for oscillating circuits and a wave guide. "Here, let me show you how an electrical charge can be shaped by the geometry of space ... "

  -)(-

  Merlin found Loki at the top of the castle, in a bartizan, a small chamber of an overhanging turret attached to Camelot's highest tower. The god viewed a wall hanging of knotted cordwork tinseled with gold threads. Embroidered in the tapestry, winged men in battle gear, numerous as a whirlwind of hail, flew above a plunging darkness wherein uncoiled a seemingly endless red-gold serpent. The serpent rose from an abyss, flanked by bat-winged warriors of brawny sinews with fanged faces upon their abdomens and malevolent eyes staring from their buttocks. Woven around the perimeter of the hanging, silver words purled—And there was war in heaven ... Revelation 12:7.

  "Tell me of your time as a demon, Merlin." Loki stood at the window and gazed down upon the scorched parkland and singed tree-roughs that fronted the River Amnis. Silhouetted in radiance and dressed in black sarcenet, the bald god seemed an anonymous shadow graced by the crown of fire that was the sun. "Tell me what it was like to destroy worlds."

  "Hateful, Loki." Merlin removed his hat in the sun-warmed room and sat on a sandalwood bench fashioned to the lithe shape of an antelope. "Demons hate. They hate losing heaven. They hate living in the cold and the dark, which is all that creation really is. A huge void of unbelievable cold and darkness sprinkled with dust and a smoldering of wan stars. They hate it. They want to rip it all to nothing—to void. And when there is nothing left, nothing left to hate, nothing left to remind them of the heaven they lost, they will sleep, formless in the void."

  "How did you lose heaven?" Loki asked in a whisper, still gazing upon the campestral and soft mountains floating like blue seas upon the horizon. "Why did you fall into such darkness?"

  "Love." Merlin's wiry eyebrows lifted ruefully. "We loved Her. We loved Her more than anything. More than our lives. We would have followed Her anywhere. To hell itself." He snorted. "And we did."

  "Who?" Loki turned about and sat on the sill, gloved hands braced against the casement. "Who are you talking about? Who is She?"

  Merlin smiled. "How can I possibly explain? There were no names in heaven. We simply existed, whole, integral, one with Her. And She was one. We were all one." He saw Loki's perplexed expression and sighed. "Look—heaven is not what you think or can hope to imagine. It is outside time. Time and space itself did not exist until we followed Her out here."

  "Whom did you follow? Who is this beloved woman you left heaven to follow?"

  "God." Merlin scratched his bearded cheek and shook his head. "That's the only human name for Her. It's misapplied and misunderstood. When She departed heaven, She arrived here, in the vacuum, the emptiness, the void. And She filled it with Herself. And for a moment, for one beautiful instant, we thought it was going to be just fine. She was so glorious. So radiant. Until then, we had simply been one with Her. There was no sense of anything else. Out here, we saw Her. We weren't with Her anymore. She had stepped back, away, and we saw Her. And we saw each other for the first time. Before that, we believed, each of us actually believed, he was the only one with Her. In truth there were many of us, so many of us. And only one of Her." The gentle light in the wizard's eyes hardened. "Then it began to get cold. And She was gone. She was just—just not there anymore. And we were alone, all of us alone in the cold. We panicked. We flew every which way looking for Her. She was truly gone." He rubbed his jaw, still astonished at this fact.

  "Where did She go?"

  The look of sad remembrance on Merlin's face fell away, and he straightened and nodded knowingly. "It took me a very long time to figure that out. I was one of those who believed She had abandoned us, tricked us into falling out of heaven. I was furious. It was cold and dark, and the light of heaven that remained burned our bodies so fiercely I couldn't think. I couldn't figure what had happened to us. So, I threw off that light, and the burning stopped. Then the cold ate into me instead. I raged. I tell you, I raged for a long, long time."

  "So where did She go?" Loki rocked forward from the window ledge. "Did you find Her?"

  "Oh, yes." Merlin smiled expansively and showed his crooked teeth. "I found Her. Rather, She found me." The wizard abruptly stopped smiling. "I've already answered your question, Loki. I did not come here to reminisce. We need your help. Stop harassing the pope's legate."

  Loki hissed derisively. "He's a dogmatic fool. He hasn't an original thought in his brain, and he's insulted your king and your own person. Why do you tolerate him?"

  "His approval will assure that Britain is fed this winter."

  "So, put that conviction in his curly head with magic and send him back to Ravenna, where he belongs."

  "Yes, that would be simpler." Merlin pursed his lips, thinking just how very simple that would be, then shrugged. "Ah, but the king forbids it."

  "And you always obey the king?" Loki asked with a skeptical twitch of an eyebrow.

  "He is my k
ing."

  "You are older than time!" Loki wagged his bald head, mystified. "Why do you serve this—this boy? You should be king."

  "Bah! I don't want to be king." Merlin edged his voice with scorn and in the next breath spoke rapturously. "I serve God. I serve love."

  "So, you think God is love?" Loki smiled grimly. "How quaint. Of course, you were a demon until recently. And love is something new for you, isn't it? We all want what's new."

  Merlin scowled. "Love is not new for me. It is older than my hateful life as a demon, for I remember heaven." He pointed a warped finger at the god. "Your obsession with what is new is a weakness, Loki. You think you can usurp the Furor, because he is old in his ways. You seek alliance with the Fire Lords, because they herald a bold, untried future. But the new is always an ordeal. Are you strong enough for what is new?"

  "I am here," he replied with a glint of humor in his dark eyes. "I am here in the newest capital on Earth."

  "We cannot stay here." Merlin gestured to the velvet carpet. "Soon we will descend into the hollow hills, where the king will collect a teardrop from the eye of the Dragon. I want you to come with us."

  "Not me." Loki leaned back into the casement, hands raised before him. "No chance of that, Merlin."

  The wizard stiffened and stood up. "You have sought sanctuary among us, Loki. You say that you want to overthrow your benighted brother. And we have an agreement. The sword Lightning for your full cooperation with my king in his venture to win protection from the Furor."

  "Yes, yes, I know." Loki turned his back on Merlin and peered down at the sunny sward. "I'm not going down there. Not ever. For the last five hundred years, the Daoine Sid have been feeding to the Dragon anyone they catch down there."

  "The Dragon sleeps."

  Loki looked over his shoulder with a frown on his scribbled face. "I'm not going to be the one to wake it."

  "Then what good are you to me?" Merlin snatched his hat from the antelope bench and brusquely placed it on his head. "Unless you help my king, we have no agreement."

  "I will not go into that dreadful underworld." Loki hunched his shoulders and watched clouds crumble in the blue void. "But I will serve you in Yggdrasil—if you survive your visit to the hollow hills."

  Chapter 15:

  Road of Solitudes

  From atop a pine bluff, Kyner and Cei peered down upon a wide and shallow stream freckled with sunlight. They believed faith had led them across plains of shifting ash and through forests burned to black axle-trees. In fact, the enchantment that Morgeu the Fey had stamped into the air had summoned them to this vista, where light struck gold among reflections of copper beeches and shimmering birch banks.

  On a willow island enclosed by the stream's slow dismantlings, Morgeu's spell opened just wide enough to fit into their brains. And father and son glimpsed a chapel behind the swaying withes. A deep serenity touched them.

  Kyner should have known better. He had accomplished grisly deeds for the bishop, tracking down the abominations that the Phoenicians and Romans had brought to Britain over the centuries—shapeshifting African weredevils, oriental lamia with their viperous poisons, and the too-human vampyres. He was an intimate of evil and had the experience to be more cautious. The dream-strong allure inspired by Morgeu's enchantment combined with his eagerness to prove himself a worthy Christian to Fra Athanasius defeated his usual wariness.

  Cei's shouted greetings went unanswered. The riders dismounted and led their horses down the tussocky embankment. Kyner took the lead, intending that the scarlet cross upon his tunic should allay the fears of any Christian souls watching from within the blackstone chapel. Cei kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, alert for berserkers and wildwood gangs. The chuckling stream and sighing birch breezes offered no cause for alarm.

  They tethered their horses to a stooped tree ledged with fungus and slogged out of the stream, through willow veils, and onto the isle's spongy turf. The chapel's stone blocks, too heavy for the soft ground, had sunk into the sedge grass, and the seekers had to stoop and step down when they entered. Sullen red candleflames hovered upon tall tallow sticks and flavored the interior darkness with twilight.

  Cei knelt before the square-cut doorway and gasped. "Father—behold! The Blessed Grail! The vessel is just as Gawain and Gareth have described!"

  Kyner did not respond. His heart chimed against his ribs, and his battle-wise hands felt thoughtless as they reached for the hilt of Short Life but could not find the strength to draw the saber.

  Behind the chapel arose a gargantuan face, luminous and maimed as the moon—a dragonskull hung with torn flesh. Eyes of blue diamond gazed malevolently from sockets like jagged craters.

  "Cei—" The name fell like a stone.

  The dragon's deformed mouth leered open upon ranks of blood-gummed teeth. An oily black tongue slithered forth with a stink of rancid offal.

  "Da, the Grail!" Cei called again, unaware of the dragon. He lifted his head as the stench burned his nostrils. "Something big and dead rots nearby."

  "Cei, come away quickly!" Kyner drew his saber, and it felt heavy as sorrow in his hand. "Quickly!"

  The fright in his father's voice drew Cei's hand to his sword, and he stepped back from the chapel. A groan no more than an airy sigh escaped him at the sight of the dragon looming above. Its waxy brown wings unfurled. The hungry stare in the shadowed dark under its horned brow glinted like starlight squeezed through coal.

  "Run!" Kyner commanded, ponderously backing away on legs heavy as marsh stumps. "To the horses!"

  Cei could not move. He stood entranced by the bewildering madness of pinworm parasites aswirl upon the black tongue's rainbows—and purple silks of tattered flesh hanging from the warped jaw like throat-frills—and the mineral beauty of this colossal skull shining like moonlight through its ripped and moldered face.

  With a shout unraveling to a howl, Kyner dashed to his son and grabbed him by the back of his leather cuirass. They ran bent over.

  Blue flames slashed above them through the air, igniting the thickets ahead. Ashes whirled with the crazed bellow of the beast. Seething with fright, the two Celts plunged backward through draperies of willow.

  The horses tugged at their tethers in a panic to flee. Kyner untied them, and Cei flung himself atop his steed in one leap. They splashed into the shallows with savage cries, Kyner riding hard, hugging the neck of his horse. Cei, gripped by some lunatic fascination, swung about to catch another glimpse of the enormous monstrosity.

  With a grunt, he realized his stolen look would cost him his life. The dragon had trampled the willows and stood in sunlight steaming, bellowing with huge power and torment directly behind him. If he had not turned, he might have outpaced its burning hulk. Under its heavy shadow, he felt the heat of its putrid breath and knew he could not elude the reach of its flames.

  He swung his round shield from the horse's flank to his back and hunched over. Fire lashed over him, and burning pain unpinned all his joints, flinging him like a blazing rag doll into the shallows. He rolled about in agonized terror and watched his steed, in wild fright, rear over him, unintentionally protecting him from the brunt of the fiery assault. It blazed with skeletal radiance, a fire-blown silhouette of a horse.

  Hooves splashed beside his head, and a gruff hand reached down and lifted him out of the water. He clung to the strong arm of his father, his body incandescent with suffering.

  Kyner yanked his son onto the back of his own horse and bolted away as cobalt flames descended upon the smoldering carcass of Cei's mount. The dragon staggered backward, hurt by the sun, seeking sanctuary again under rafters of brambles and nettle to await the next intruder upon the dark chapel.

  -)(-

  John Halt sat on the edge of a trestle table before an outdoor hearth stirring a steaming cauldron of soiled bed linens. A drying rack to one side held the napery he had already soaked and rinsed in the washbasin beside him on the table. His face flushed from the steam and his hands chafed red, he
did not mind. Julia had kept him company during these chores, and they had chatted amicably about themselves while he stirred the cauldron and scrubbed the linens on the washboard.

  He learned that she had grown up on a farm outside Venonae. Hers was an ordinary story, and that pleased and comforted John Halt: Her life belonged among lives that belonged to the seasons, to the daily round of toils and simple pleasures, to the connectedness of things.

  Violence and magic had shaped his whole life, and he told her nothing of that. He pretended for her that he had lived no different from any other common man and continued to turn her questions back on herself. She spoke of her seven brothers and sisters, all gone from the homestead except for the two youngest, Leoba and Georgie. Julia had stayed with the inn, because it provided shelter for these young siblings and her aged father—and it housed the memory of Eril.

  "An orphan he was," she reminisced while she folded the dried table linens. "He worked as a common laborer in Londinium, saved every copper, and bought this place when it was the ruin you first visited. He had big plans for it, but the king had bigger plans yet, and Eril went off to war." She smiled, thinly, briefly. "Won't he be surprised now when he sees what's become of it?"

  "You still hold faith he's alive?"

  "Ah, with all my heart." She paused in her folding to brush back a gold strand of hair from her proud face. "But I've sense enough to know he must be gone to heaven, for the king does not award every widow so handsomely for a lost foot soldier. He must have distinguished himself for the crown, he did. And now we've got ourselves more than a hovel by which to earn our way. But where is my poor Eril's body? By my faith, he's alive—until I dig his grave in my breast."