Merlin's Ring

by H. Warner Munn

Because of the personal interest Gwalchmai had suddenly taken in the child, the loss he felt was all the more poignant when he learned the next day that the boy had run away during the night.

  He brooded upon the matter to an unusual degree, without understanding how he could be so affected. He was moody and short-spoken with the others for some time.

  The night before May Day is Walpurgis Night. During those dark and evil hours of April thirtieth, in the year 1439, Gwalchmai lay sleeping soundly in his room. He woke suddenly, i

  There had been no sound he had detected, but he felt a presence beside him and a stirring of the air as though something breathed upon him. He had been dreaming of the missing boy and he opened his mouth to call his name.

  Before he could speak, fingers fell across his lips and he heard the voice of La Meffraye say, “Quiet, as you love life!”

  He could not be mistaken, for there was no other woman in the castle, but there was a sweetness in the voice that was familiar to him and that he had never heard in the tones of the Baron’s former wardrobe mistress.

  He clasped the fingers in his own and kissed them, whispering, “Oh, my Corenice, have you come back to me again, after so long and in such a guise? It is well that it is dark, for you would not wish to see me as I am!”

  Lips came tenderly down upon his. “I was not able to come before, my darling. I am not always permitted to do as I will. It was necessary that we should be apart for a time, for what you have done was a part of your destiny alone, not ours. Now that I have come, I cannot be with you long.

  This body has a strong and dangerous will, and there are forces moving it that bring me fear of destruction.“

  Gwalchmai grunted in disbelief. “Fear? My Corenice? Incredible!”

  “It is so. Come. There is only a little time we can be together. We must not waste it. Your soul is in danger and if yours is lost, mine has no destination forever. Come! Do not wait to dress.”

  He caught up his long shirt, for he slept naked in the fashion of the time, and cinctured it about his waist with his ancient belt of coins. The stone of the stairs was cold beneath his feet.

  Corenice drew him quickly down the lower corridor and led him to other stairs, which brought him deeper underground below the level of the moat.

  Here the very air was gelid, but there was the smell of burning without any of its heat and the reek of sulphur stung his nostrils.

  They went down a long corridor and Gwalchmai saw the light of a torch fixed in a wall bracket. It was short and had obviously been left to burn itself out. The archway beyond was dark.

  Corenice motioned toward the opening.

  “Look within and farewell! I am losing control. This body must return or it will be missed. Learn why you must leave quickly and flee this place. Vengeance will soon fall upon the Baron and his retinue and I would have you gone.”

  “When Shall we meet and where?”

  “As I told you once before, we must go back where we began our journey. When you have done your devoir—you will know when it is completed—we shall be together and go back together, never to be parted again.”

  Another quick kiss and she was instantly gone. Gwalchmai knew that La Meffraye would remember nothing of this, wherever in the castle she came to herself again.

  He peered into the underground chamber. At first he saw nothing, although he guessed from the empty sound of his breathing that he confronted a large open space. Then, high above him, he saw two red sparks like coals.

  He looked at them, into them, for he had an eery sensation that they were also looking at him. It was hard to tear his gaze away from their gleaming. The smell of brimstone was overpowering and there was another, heavier smell mingled with it, a reeking odor like that of a slaughter-house.

  With a distinct effort he closed his eyes and, breaking the hypnotic effect that the glowing objects had upon him, plucked out the torch stub and went into the room.

  By the flickering light, he thought he saw a giant shape move forward at him. He stood still and the shadows quieted. He saw then that the presence was a huge horned statue and the two ruddy lights were its lordly and despising eyes.

  The glaring orbs looked down upon him and upon the altar between himself and the image.

  Some distorted imagination of the carver had created a gloating expression on the face of the creature. The body seemed to be shaggy. The legs ended in fetlocks and hoofs. The arms and talons reached out at the altar as though to snatch art whatever was placed upon it, although at present it was empty.

  Gwalchmai reached out and touched the stone surface with a dreadful surmise. The altar was sticky with blood that had not long since congealed.

  He stood staring down upon it, comprehension of many things flooding in upon him. Now he thought he understood whence the missing children had disappeared, the cry that had come in the night as he lay sleeping at Machecoul; the, .reason why the country had been scoured for little ones who had no parents and no friends.

  In revulsion, he looked at his hands. This blood was no more than the thinnest of stains! The blood he felt responsible for shedding, even though he was an unwitting accomplice to the act, should have made those hands thicker than themselves!

  He stood, chilled to the heart, naked and defenseless, hi horror and in shame. Self-revulsion choked him. The smoke from the, torch rose into his nostrils and the reek of sulphur was strong. The walls of the chamber seemed to race around him and the statue to lean forward as though it reached in his direction.

  It was not all illusion. The eyes were -larger now and boring into his. He could not look away. He felt as though he was being pulled toward them and they grew and swelled and swam before him like pools of bubbling lava. Gwalchmai was helpless to resist. There were spells to meet such evil and he knew them, but his mind was being sucked empty.

  He took another step nearer the altar and the grasping hands.

  The eyes opened wider yet, smokily scornful. The lips curved in a gloating smile. The carven hair upon the arms seemed to lift and the statue lean forward and reach out for him.

  The talons opened, they touched and gripped his waist; then they recoiled as though the creature could also know pain. Gwalchmai had felt no more than a brief tightness upon his belt, but he heard a hissing like flesh seared by hot iron.

  He felt that he was surrounded by a sheltering warmth and he knew from whence it came. The belt had been created in love, presented in love, worn in loving remembrance.

  His tongue clove dryly to the roof of his mouth and he could not speak, but he thought, “Ah, Mother! I should have known that if all else failed, your never-forgotten love would surround and protect me.”

  A little mouse scurried into the room. In the terrible silence of that quiet, but deathly struggle, the pattering of its little feet was distinct, and enough to distract Gwalch-mai’s attention. He looked at it and took his first deep conscious breath for what seemed many moments.

  The piercing eyes lost their power over his muscles and he drew back.

  “Let me in!” said a tiny quiet bell chime in his mind. A great peace and strength came upon him. The little mouse, which had just touched his foot, fell over unconscious upon its side.

  He knew and sensed a second presence within him—a well-loved personality now a part of himself. His eyes were opened as they had never been before and he saw that he was not alone.

  He did not dare look long away from the statue, for he perceived that it was more than stone. Its outlines were obscured by a loathsome jelly with a form that flowed and shifted and was more dreadful than before.

  The statue had eyes and they burned. It had a mouth and it spoke:

  “This one was warned against going underground! He was warned against falling into sin! The man is mine! Who dares say me nay?”

  A gallant lithe figure, all in green, with a cithern slung upon his back, stepped up from behind to Gwalchmai’s side. He doffed his cap with the long red feather,- swept the flagstones with a
low bow, and laughed in the countenance of the horror. He threw down a little clutch of branches, as one who hurls a gage to an enemy.

  “By the leaves of oak, ash, and thorn—by the power of the mistletoe—I, Sir Huon of Elveron, say thee nay and am prepared to maintain my challenge with my life!”

  “Knowing that you have no soul—knowing also that death, to you, is extinction, dare you still risk all the little that you have to stand beside this man?”

  The words were scornful, but Gwalchmai noticed that the writhing pseudopods avoided the green leaves.

  “On my honor as a Knight of Faery, I can do no less!”

  “I have no quarrel with the Fay, but this man has plagued me far too long. He destroyed my people at Elveron; he robbed my magician at Roncesvaux; he has confounded my plans; he has murdered my sorcerer for your sake; he has set aside my dooms!”

  “You will do well to have no quarrels with either of us, Oduarpa. Our magic is older than yours, and more potent.”

  The thing, which had been the statue, grinned contemptuously.

  “That shall next be tested. You are no more than a fly in my sight. Die then!”

  It raised a menacing hand. It pointed a curved-claw at Huon. A ravening bolt of curdled crimson fury shot forth at the minstrel.

  An immense dripping shield was interposed to meet it. The lightning splashed harmlessly against the protecting barrier, sank into and spread as a broad, swirling blossom of incandescence. White, pure, and smokeless, each petal became a flame of fire.

  The transformed levin spun and hummed like a giant bee. It darted upon the statue. The hairy arm drew back.

  “I met you once before, Lord of the Dark Face, to your sorrow,” sang a liquid, rippling voice. “I can still protect my children. Do you remember?”

  “I remember, Spirit of the Wave! Your realm is Ocean. My power is greater upon the land than yours can ever be. You will do well to protect yourself, square-eyed Ahuni-i, who have but one worshipper and whose strength is small!”

  A dark turbulence of sooty cloud enclosed both statue and enveloping rose of flame. When it fell away, the flame was gone. The cloud’thickened and writhed along the floor.

  It took shape. It was a python, a hydra, a dragon of seven heads—each shape shifting into another as it hissed, and rearing, flung itself upon the three. It seized upon the shield with massive jaws and coiled about it.

  “But your power is not greater than this!” A stunning crash jarred the castle as a giant hammer descended upon the Protean monster. Its fragments coalesced into a pool of“ ebon particles like flowing foulness; they united, became a hawser, a rope, a tendril that coiled and raised like a threatening cobra, swiftly to be withdrawn into the body of the thing.

  Red-bearded Thor stepped up beside the others and leaned upon his hammer in careless defiance. A questing, single uninjured member of the pseudopod struck out at it as though to test his strength further.

  Thor threw down a cluster of Rowan-berries in its path. The pseudopod avoided them as though they were red-hot. It twisted and turned and withdrew.

  The Lord of the Dark Face scowled. “So there is still life in the godling! How many of the Aesir stand at your back? How do men look upon you these last days, Shape-Changer, Trickster? Whose worship—what horse upon your altar gives you strength? As you see, I dine upon better fare! My worshippers and I drink the Red Milk together. Strike again, if you can! I do not think you are able. I am waiting!”

  “Ala-la-la! Ala-la-la!”

  A fearsome war-cry sounded, and Gwalchmai thrilled to hear the eldritch scream of Aztlan’s heroes.

  “Is it blows that must protect the soul of this man? Then you must face mine! You boast of your tiny successes, you puny fool! Your little altars, hidden in dungeons; your offer-nigs that are given you in secret and by night; your sacrificed babies!”

  A fearful apparition took its place in line. In the shape of a man, it towered above them all. Around its neck it wore a necklace of skulls; upon its head a jaguar’s grinning mask served as helmet; its left arm bore a round shield fringed with hummingbird’s feathers and its right hand carried a heavy wooden sword, studded with teeth of volcanic glass.

  Its armor clanked as it moved forward in menace, for this was the overlapping steel of a Roman centurion.

  “I am Huitzilopochtli, God of War of the Aztlan Nation, and because I was once a man, I have not forgotten my son! Twenty thousand hearts have been ripped from human breasts^to do me honor in a single day. They were warrior hearts taken from captives my people conquered in battle to make me strong! Rivers of blood have flowed to give me my power! Before my son I too raise my shield and stand beside him with my maccahuitl!”

  The form around the statue twisted and eddied in shape-lessness. It undulated viscidly. Angry crimson and pitchy blacks waved like ribbons hi the reaching, translucent worms shot forth and withdrawn in hideous fury.

  “Your strength is greater than all the rest, for your worship is rising instead of falling. Yet mine is rising higher and will remain when yours is forgotten, for my strength comes from the evil in human hearts, not from the reverence you are offered by your sacrifices. I base my strength today on those future sacrifices you will not have! Do you dispute my ascendant might? No? Then this stained soul is mine!”

  Gwalchmai spoke for the first time, but the voice was not his. Never before had he heard that lovely golden chiming issue from his own lips. “Then you must take us both, Demon from the Stars, for we are one!”

  The reaching hands had almost touched Ahuni-i’s shield again, but now they shrank back. Once more there was a lambent light illuminating the dark chamber, but this time it lay like a barrier between the thing and the defiant group. It was a line of brilliant glory that ran along the floor like a living creature; it turned, it angled, it surrounded the group —it was a pentagram.

  The rod, which had traced the mystic design upon the stones, was lifted in the hand of the majestically bearded man who had joined them and stood inside of the protecting diagram. It quivered and pointed at the statue.

  The man’s feathered headdress lifted and swayed with a movement of air the others did not feel. His long robes swung and billowed as though they were being puffed outward from his body. All about him was breezy motion.

  “I am Quetzalcoatl, Lord of the Winds! My people call me the Feathered Serpent. You may have heard mention of me as Merlin. I, too, stand beside my godson and will test my strength against yours, Oduarpa! Do you accept my challenge?”

  Under that threatening Wand of Power, the amorphic semiliquid mass sank reluctantly into the body of the statue.

  Its outlines became clear and sharp.

  The burning orbs flashed forth with great brilliance. Gwalchmai was caught by them. Once again he could not look away. He heard the hated voice snarl, “You have powerful friends, man. I release you, but trespassers must be punished. Go, then, bearing my mark!”

  The light burned into Gwalchmai’s brain. He felt a blinding pain in his right eye and clapped his hands over both. It was a torture beyond any pain he had ever felt, yet his suffering seemed in the manner of an atonement and he was almost glad.

  He moaned and took his hands away. It was very dark and be knew that he was alone. He was not certain he had ever been otherwise. Had he stood thus before the terrible statue, which now again was stone, and lived this ordeal only in fancy?

  No! It could not be, for now vision was coming back to him, but dimly so. The pentagram was gone; those who had rallied hi his defense had departed and even the mouse had disappeared.

  He still had the memory of them all.

  In confirmation of his dire thoughts, he picked up the fallen torch. There was a difference in his perception of its light.

  With his left eye, he could see it plainly. His right eye had been blinded.

  He glanced again at the statue. It was only a carven image. It did not move, but the eyes of it had become for a second time red sparks of malevolence.<
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  Then, at that moment, the light of another torch fell upon him and a quiet voice spoke from behind.

  “Barran Sathanas! My Patron and my Prince!” It was De Rais.

  Gwalchmai whirled upon him. “Hell waits for you, Baron!”

  “L’Aiglon, I am hi Hell! So are you. So are we all. Is it strange that it took me long to realize it? Others have always known it. I learned it at Rouen.

  “Look you—if I dwell in a country and make my home in it, then I owe allegiance to its Prince. Therefore, I must needs worship Satan while I bide on Earth.

  “I renounced God when that torch fell into the pyre in Rouen’s Old Marketplace—and I renounced Him forever. Surely, wherever men burn angels can be nowhere else but Hell!”

  “This then is your true Foundation of the Innocents! How many young innocents have you sacrificed to your lump of stone?”

  “Is it? Is He a lump of stone? Look closely into his eyes and tell him that!”

  Gwalchmai gave the eidolon another quick glance and as quickly averted his eyes. He felt the pull of that malignant gaze and could not doubt there was something dangerous there that was no friend to him, however it might regard the Baron.

  He flung down the guttering torch and pushed by De.Rais into the corridor. De Rais, holding his own torch, caught up with him and lit the way for them both to the upper levels.

  “How could you do it? You, who loved her!”

  “You know what I think of the sex. I never thought of her as woman. I worshipped her. She was my angel—my saint—all that was good in me. Now I am burned out, L’Aiglon. Hell is in my heart and I live with fiends. You asked how many children, but you did not ask why.

  “Messer Prelati is working with me. He knows how to make gold. The prime ingredient is the blood of an innocent child, but it seems impossible to find one who is innocent.

  How many? Forty at Champtoce, another forty at Machecoul—almost two hundred here. I cannot guess how many as we toured France or lay at Orleans—and not an innocent among them! What use to hire an alchemist if I cannot find what he needs to make the gold I want and must have?“”