The King's Wizard

by James Mallory

  The stir of astonishment at the king’s words almost masked the sound of the doors to the Great Hall opening once more. Vortigern glanced toward the doorway, and saw Merlin and Nimue entering, followed by several guards. He bounded to his feet and crossed the room, smiling a crocodile smile.

  “Ah, Merlin,” he said, reaching out to clasp the wizard’s shoulder. “I need your help. I know I’ve been a little hot-tempered,” he added without contrition, “but patience was never one of my virtues.”

  “You have so few, I wouldn’t trouble myself about that one, Sire,” Merlin answered. He longed to return to the sunny courtyard, but he refused to allow the king to see what his captivity had done to him. “What do you want?”

  Vortigern shrugged off the veiled insult. “I have to know: can Uther be defeated?”

  His words woke a piercing memory of the teasing fragments of dreams that had tormented Merlin during his imprisonment. Red dragon or white? “I dreamed a battle near Winchester,” Merlin said, smiling faintly at the king’s frustration. “But I couldn’t see how it ended. I was too weak.”

  “Dream it again!” Vortigern snapped. “I want to know who wins!”

  The tension in the room was palpable, and Merlin could feel the hatred and distrust of magic that radiated from the British lords. Once they would have welcomed magic as their natural ally, but it had been too long since a king of the Old Ways had ruled Britain. Though he wished them no harm, even Pagans thought of Merlin as their enemy.

  “And I want fresh air and sunlight!” Merlin responded in frustration. “Without them I can’t dream dreams—see visions. I need the sun!”

  He’d exposed the depth of his infirmity, but Vortigern, like many bullies, was mollified by a display of his victim’s weakness.

  “Is that all?” the king said expansively. “Why didn’t you say so? There’s plenty of sun up on the battlements.” He nodded toward the guards, who stepped forward meaningfully. “Go bask in it. And come back soon with what I need to know.”

  Merlin and Nimue walked along the stone and wood battlements of Pendragon Castle, able finally to touch, to be together. Here in the south, the cold weather was not yet as established as it was in the north, and the air was soft. Merlin drank in the sunlight and clean air as if they were life itself, and the disturbing clamor of events not yet to be faded from his mind.

  But the need to make a decision remained. Should he place his prophetic gifts in the service of Mab’s ally? Merlin hesitated at the thought. The last time he had prophesied to Vortigern, it was almost by accident, but this time it would be a deliberate decision. There were two kings upon the chessboard of Britain—Uther and Vortigern. Which should he help to victory? Whose victory would hurt Mab most? The choice seemed obvious, but Uther was far away—and Vortigern held Nimue as his hostage.

  How can I let anything happen to her? Merlin wondered despairingly. For the first time in many years, there was something that mattered to him as much as his vow to destroy Mab—Nimue—and for the first time Merlin was unsure of what course to take. How could he save his love and keep his oath?

  Nimue took his arm. What lay beyond the castle walls was apparently as new to her as it was to him, and she pointed and exclaimed at the hurry and bustle going on below them and in the surrounding countryside.

  “Oh, Merlin, look! It is as if there is another city surrounding this one,” Nimue exclaimed.

  “A city of legions,” Merlin said, smiling faintly at his own jest. Scattered across the rolling fields outside the walls of the city, Merlin and Nimue could see the tents of Vortigern’s army as it massed for war. The host was enormous: through the years, Vortigern had drained all Britain’s resources to keep his forces armed and supplied, and now, inevitably, they would be used … but the young lovers found it hard to care. Fate had tossed them together once more, and for the moment, that was all that mattered.

  They continued their circuit of the castle walls, and Merlin felt himself growing stronger by the moment. The thought that Vortigern might once more lock him in that foul cell beneath the earth was a terrifying thought. What would he do to escape that?

  Merlin shook his head, willing the dilemma far from him. He had made his decision long ago, and he did not want to be faced with any new choices. He only wanted Nimue … and freedom.

  “What do you hope for most, Nimue?” Merlin asked. “When Uther and Vortigern fight, one must triumph and the other die.”

  Now Nimue stopped, pointing toward the distant horizon.

  “Way over there, beyond those hills, is an island called Avalon,” Nimue said wistfully. “Joseph of Arimathea came there from Jerusalem with the Holy Grail. It has the power to feed the hungry and heal the sick. It is lost to us now, but one day a man with a pure heart will find it and peace and happiness will return to us.”

  “It’s a lovely story, and so are you,” Merlin said.

  Nimue smiled at him and took his hand, ignoring the guards that loitered several yards away. Her hand was soft and warm against his work-hardened ones, and in that instant it seemed as if they could take up where they had left off on that long-ago summer’s day, as if the intervening years of trouble and danger they had both endured simply had not existed.

  Perhaps those years had been the dream and not this shining moment. Perhaps Merlin could simply step aside from his half-glimpsed destiny into a world where he could love and be loved as an ordinary man.

  He did not then realize that his wish was so fervent because it was for something he could never have. All around him Britain was tearing itself to pieces, and in this moment Merlin didn’t care. All that mattered was Nimue.

  Far away, that golden afternoon was reflected in a giant crystal sphere that seemed to hang weightlessly in darkness. The great scrying ball was at the center of the midnight rainbow chamber that was the heart of Mab’s power. Within this spherical sanctuary all went on as if the New Religion had never come to Britain. Here the power of the Old Ways reigned unchallenged.

  Mab stepped through the concentric rows of glittering crystals that stretched as far as the eye could see. As she crossed the mirrored floor her reflection seemed to follow her, a silvery ghost. Approaching the ball, she tapped its surface with one long lacquered talon. A large oval ring with a blood-red stone flashed on her forefinger, secret fires churning at its heart. The tiny images of the lovers embraced, oblivious.

  Mab smiled, baring sharp white teeth. Merlin thought he’d seen her trap and escaped it by refusing to use his magic to escape Vortigern—but the blade now laid at his throat was far sharper and more inescapable. He’d chosen to be ruled by his human heart and humans were subject to falling in love.

  Mab didn’t understand love, but she knew its symptoms and its effects from long observation. Lovers would do anything to keep one another from harm.

  Even break an oath sworn on their life’s blood.

  “Frik!” Mab rasped. “Come here. There is a journey I need to make. …”

  Merlin and Nimue had dined privately in her rooms. The sun had set, and the full moon was visible in the night sky outside her window. Her disapproving ladies in waiting hovered around them until Nimue shooed them out.

  “Vortigern will expect you to prophesy for him soon,” Nimue said when they were alone. “He isn’t a patient man.”

  “I know,” Merlin said, rubbing his still-bruised jaw reflectively. “But when the time comes, he’ll have his prophecy. I don’t think he’ll like what I’m going to tell him, though.” Merlin smiled.

  “Are you really a wizard?” Nimue asked wonderingly, studying his face.

  “A Hand-Wizard,” Merlin said apologetically. For the first time in years, his failure to master Frik’s teachings bothered him. Now at last Merlin wanted to be great, in order to be worthy of Nimue’s love.

  “You mean there’s magic in hands?” Nimue asked, enchanted. She didn’t understand. Merlin realized that to her, magic and wizardry were only a wonderful game. Nimue followed the New
Religion; the Old Ways were less than a legend to her, and she had no idea what his words implied.

  “They can say so much more than words,” Merlin answered. “They can welcome, beg, pray—” His hands made graceful gestures in the air. “They can even pluck down the moon for you.”

  He reached up toward the night sky, his thumb and forefinger framing the edges of the radiant moon. “If only we could keep everything simple, like the roundness of the moon. Look at its simplicity, Nimue. Everything equal, no part more important than the rest.”

  He gestured, and Nimue’s eyes grew round. She was seeing what Merlin meant her to see; the moon, like a round silver penny, running over his fingers like a magician’s coin-trick. He closed his fingers over its light and offered the hand to Nimue.

  Her hands cupped his own. Her face was flushed with awe.

  “Ah, but the moon’s not so easy to catch and hold. …” Merlin grinned, opening his fist to reveal emptiness.

  Nimue glanced up toward the sky to where the moon rode serenely, and laughed with delight. “I thought you weren’t going to do any magic,” she said, her face clouding with worry.

  “That wasn’t magic,” Merlin told her gently. “Magic’s real. That was a trick.”

  “How did you do it?” she demanded eagerly.

  “Ah,” said Merlin wisely. “It’s a secret … and if I told you it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.”

  Nimue shook her head, smiling at his foolery. “Can you tell me something plain … without tricks, Merlin?”

  “Yes. Just ask.” In that moment he would have given her anything.

  “What do you want?” Nimue asked seriously.

  “I want you,” Merlin said. And in that moment it was all the truth in the world. If he could have Nimue he would want nothing more.

  But Nimue was shaking her head. “That’s not what I meant. What do you want from life?”

  And to that question, the young wizard had no answer.

  Plans for the coming spring’s battle went forward in the autumn days that followed. Vortigern was confident that his plan to attack Uther in winter would succeed, but he also had to convince his officers to follow it. The weight of custom was a heavy yoke: to wage a winter war, supplies must be gathered, horses shod, arrows fletched out of season. Without the force of the king’s will, everyone would settle back into the traditional ways, doing nothing. But by spring Uther might be strong enough to cause real trouble. Vortigern’s days were full.

  Messengers rode back and forth between Pendragon Castle and the sprawling army camp that grew beside it. Scouts rode north to spy out the extent of Uther’s defenses at Winchester, and to tally the number of soldiers loyal to him. Vortigern was mindful that the young prince should gain no information about his forces in return, and stationed sentries everywhere.

  And one morning, when the sun was only a few hours high, Vortigern’s outriders rode for Pendragon with an incredible tale. It was amazing enough to bring the king from a conference with his generals to stand upon the wooden stairway that led down into the castle courtyard. Vortigern stood and watched as the wooden gates of Pendragon swung inward to admit a woman like no woman he had ever seen.

  She wore strange silver armor and shining black robes, and she rode a magnificent white horse whose silken tail brushed the ground. Her hair was braided with jewels, and her lips were a glistening inhuman violet. Nine maidens in hooded black gowns, crowned with golden diadems, rode behind her, each horse as spotlessly white as their queen’s. No one moved to stop her; soldiers and peasants alike were struck spellbound by this strange apparition. At a majestic walk, she rode forward until she was directly beneath the stairway.

  “Hail, Vortigern, King of Britain. I am Mab, Queen of the Old Ways,” she said, raising her hand in salute.

  Vortigern stared at her with narrowed eyes. As if he had always remembered it, a moment more than half his life ago came vividly into his mind. A landless Saxon raider had dreamed of seizing the throne of Britain. Though she had clouded his mind afterward, Mab had been with him that night, urging him forward for her own purposes.

  “Who are you?” asked the Saxon warlord he had been on a night long ago.

  “One who can give you what you desire,” Queen Mab had answered. “Land. Power. A kingdom. A name that will live forever. You will have power and rich lands beyond imagining. You are Pagan, and I do not care who rules there so long as the people return to the Old Ways,” Mab had said.

  She had been the most beautiful creature he had ever seen—ravishing and terrifying at once. But still Vortigern had broken their pact—if pact it had been. He’d cared not what gods or spirits existed or didn’t so long as he ruled. Britain had become Vortigern’s kingdom, not Mab’s. He’d slaughtered her priestesses and looted her shrines, and she had done nothing.

  But then, Uther didn’t have the power to stop him, either, and Uther was beginning to be actively annoying.

  “What brings you here, Madame?” he said slowly. Vortigern was determined not to be impressed. If Mab had truly possessed the power to stop him, he told himself, she would have done it years before.

  The woman below him raised her head proudly and stared into his face with inhumanly-bright eyes. “I can tell you how to defeat Uther,” she said.

  The morning sunlight slanted through the high windows of the Great Hall. It stood empty, its door barred, save for two figures.

  Vortigern sat upon the throne he had taken from Constant, crowned and armored as the king he had become. Across the room, Queen Mab stood facing him across the straw-strewn floor, veiled in the power of the Old Ways.

  “What will this alliance cost me, Madame?” Vortigern asked, breaking the silence. “There’s a price for everything.”

  Mab regarded Vortigern with grudging respect. He had betrayed her years before when she had chosen him as her champion to wrest Britain away from the Christian King constant. Mab had set Merlin in his place, and she did not intend to give Vortigern the opportunity to foil her plans again. Let him think she had come to aid him in fear of Uther and his Christian priests, or to take simple vengeance upon her renegade wizard. Once Merlin had returned to her side she could dispense with Vortigern. She would need no other allies!

  “The wizard, Merlin. I want him,” Mab said.

  Vortigern settled back on his throne, smiling faintly. This was a game he knew well.

  “He’s too valuable to me. He sees things—he has visions.”

  She had not known that—it was nothing she had taught him—but Mab dismissed it easily. “Anyone can have visions. Don’t you see visions? Don’t you see yourself winning?” she asked persuasively.

  “Always. But I don’t see why you would want to help me,” Vortigern said cynically.

  He was more clever than she’d thought; a scornful realist in a world of frightened, superstitious fools.

  Just as she was.

  “I’d rather see you on the throne than Uther,” Mab told him truthfully, walking toward the throne. The fact that she would rather see Merlin on the throne than either one of them was something that need not be mentioned.

  “Why?” Vortigern demanded again. “I don’t believe in your Old Ways.”

  “You don’t believe in anything!” Mab said indignantly, stopping in front of his throne.

  Vortigern leaned forward until their faces were very close.

  “I believe in me,” he said fiercely.

  “It’s not enough to make us win!” Mab answered with equal fierceness. If only Merlin had been as true to her vision as Vortigern was to his own, she would have accomplished wonders by now. The New Religion would have been swept away, Avalon destroyed, and the Old Ways would reign supreme once more.

  But Vortigern discerned something she hadn’t intended him to discover. He smiled.

  “I understand,” he said, sitting back and smirking. “Uther will bring Christianity to the people and that will be the end of you.”

  He was too stubborn! Mab raged.
Vortigern was blind to his own advantage while he sought the hidden motives of others. She could not persuade him to aid her, and it was far too late to try any of her old tricks. She would have to find another way. Perhaps Uther would be more sensible. Mab turned away.

  “All right,” Vortigern said unexpectedly. “You can have your wizard. But how do I defeat Uther?”

  You never will, Mab vowed. It would be Merlin who defeated the Christian king. But Vortigern did not need to know that. Not yet.

  “Sacrifice Nimue to the Great Dragon,” she said.

  Let Vortigern think that this was what would bring him victory, and Merlin’s life was merely a price for the knowledge. But Nimue’s death was the linchpin of Mab’s plan. Even if Merlin would not use magic to save his own life, he would use it to save his beloved’s.

  And then Merlin would belong to her.

  But once more the king balked. “That’s not so easy,” he said slowly.

  “Ethics?” Mab mocked, cocking her head with a birdlike gesture.

  “Politics,” the king answered. “I’m holding Nimue hostage so her father won’t join Uther.”

  Mab nodded, understanding her ally’s misgivings completely. Vortigern would sacrifice anything to victory, but he would not sacrifice victory itself.

  Frik! she demanded silently.

  In the empty hall outside the royal chamber, the air flickered and the black-clad form of Mab’s gnomish servant appeared. In a moment he had transformed himself from an obsequious gnome into the image of the timid Sir Egbert. Vortigern trusted Sir Egbert as much as he trusted any of his captains, knowing that if Sir Egbert could manage to nerve himself up to mention something, it was something worth hearing. In this disguise, Frik flung open the doors of the throne room and assumed a look of frantic agitation.

  “Urgent news, Sire! Lord Ardent has defected! He’s joined Prince Uther!” He dropped to one knee and gazed up gogglingly at Vortigern, and at Mab standing behind him.

  “How convenient, Madame,” Vortigern said. He doubted the spontaneity of Ardent’s defection, but if Mab had the power to arrange that, then she certainly still had the power to make Vortigern’s battle with Uther end in his victory as well.