Merlin Ambrosius stayed seven days with Berach Ui Neill. To stay less would be to insult the hospitality of a king. They talked of many things, but mostly of those men of Eire who settled in the north of the Briton’s land, and how peace might be got between them and the more southerly lords. When Merlin spoke again with the bard, it was only of small matters, and small stories.
At the end of his stay, the king bid Merlin a courteous farewell and gifted him with a gold-hilted dagger to hang beside his sword. The sorcerer was given a good escort of six men to walk him to the borders of the Ui Neill lands. There, the men turned back to their homes, and Merlin Ambrosius and the great hound Ciar walked on, Merlin wrapping his cloak tight about himself, for even in the brightness of the day, the winds were grew cold.
The blessed isle may be likened to a great bowl floating on the ocean. All its steep hills and mountains ring its coasts. Once beyond their heights, the land rolls and slopes pleasantly downward and one may walk beside pure streams of running water through forests of mighty oak and ash, bountiful hazel and apple. But when one reaches the center, one finds all the waters have mixed and mingled and settled together to create black fens, dark as night and more foul than any midden. Their miasma hangs heavy over them, breeding disease and disaster. The secret lights inside lure travelers from the narrow paths and bridges so that they disappear forever. Only the poorest people cling to their edges. Those without king or clan or any other protection eke out sad lives beneath the towering trees that are fed by the black waters.
As he began the downward slope, Merlin came to a place where three streams crossed each other, mingling into one. He took Ciar’s golden collar and tossed it into the river. Then, he dipped his staff into the waters and he said. “In the name of the mother of all the waters, are you the river men call Balidoire?”
And from the river came the answer. “I am that water and I will take you where you need to go.”
So, Merlin walked on.
Merlin followed the path of the river and the fall of the land down through the great forests and meadows of deep green. When men stopped him and asked his business, he was always careful to give courteous answer, and to have a token gift of silver ready for whoever they named as their king. Whether these gifts found their way to these kings, Merlin neither knew or cared. He cared only that he was allowed to go his way unmolested.
At last, the land’s slope gentled and the rolling hills spread out and smoothed. The air over the land took on the tinge of sulphur and death, growing warm and close despite the deepening of the autumn. So it was that Merlin knew the darkness before him was the great fen. The Balidoire, his good guide, spread out as well, growing flat, slow and murky where before it had been sprightly and silver. The trees huddled closer together, dipping their branches down to catch at his hair and clothes. Even his stout hound grew uneasy, alternately growling at the strange noises and pressing close to Merlin’s side. Merlin patted the hound and urged him along, but he also kept tight grip on his white staff.
At last, through a grove of willows, mangy with autumn, he saw a thin stream of smoke rising in the fetid air. Beneath it hunched a small hovel. The house was so low and covered so much in turf that it might have grown there rather than been raised by the hand of man. Even Merlin’s eyes would have missed it were it not for the smoke.
Merlin stopped some small distance away, and commanded Ciar to sit peaceably beside him. “I salute the house!” he called. “I seek Lasair Ui Fian, and would speak with her if she is here!”
He waited patiently. The birds and the frogs made their calls to one another. The waters muttered at his feet, and the trees whispered overhead in the cold, foul wind. Then, slowly, he heard a different rustling and saw movement within the darkness of the house. The blanket hanging over the low doorway moved aside and out crawled an old woman.
She was filthy beyond description, more a creature of mud and earth than of flesh. Her clotted hair was white beneath the grime and stuck out wildly in every direction. It was impossible to say what color her ungirded garment had once been, but now it was streaked green and black. So thin was she that Merlin could see all the bones beneath her skin, and her fingers were delicate twigs. Her eyes were still clear and green, but as he saw the pain in them, Merlin’s heart was moved to great pity.
She smiled, a horrible gaping grin that showed her shriveled gums and single tooth. “And what is it you seek here, a fine man such as yourself?” Her voice cracked and wheezed as she spread her bony hands and tottered toward him. Her legs were bare, her feet black with muck. and her odor that of the fen itself. “Is it a love charm, perhaps?” She leered. “Some pretty young thing not sure that a man of silver as well as gold is up to keeping her fat and full?”
Despite his pity and his horror, Merlin kept his countenance and bowed low. “I would not presume to bring such a matter before you, reverend one, mother of the oak and the mistletoe.”
Lasair Ui Neill stopped where she was. The leer drained from her lean face and her arms fell to her sides. “That is not myself,” she said, wagging her head. “That was long ago.”
“Not so long ago. A moment. A fold of years.”
“Stop!” she cried, her voice suddenly so strong and clear, that Merlin raised his brows. “That is gone, I say.” She jabbed one long finger at him. “Gone, and better so.”
Merlin looked about at the yellowing willows and the waiting fen. He looked at the low house and breathed in the stench of the air. “How better, reverend one?” he asked quietly.
She closed her mouth, and he saw again that for all her face was ravaged by time and hardship her eyes were as clear as the streams flowing down the slopes. “Better hidden than destroyed,” she said softly. “Better sleeping than dead.” Her jaw hardened and her shoulders straightened. It was as if twenty years slipped from her, and he saw how well she had perfected her disguise. “You are one who sees, fine man.” She spoke judiciously now, looking him up and down. “I can still tell that much. You know the time loops around itself, and all things come again to their beginnings. The age of miracles will come again, and the voice will be needed to speak once more.”
Merlin let out a long, slow breath. “That voice does still exist then.”
Slowly, she nodded, all guile, all terrible humor gone from her. “For those who can find it and hear, yes it does.”
“The way to hear that voice must be greatly secret.”
At his words, her leering smile returned all in a moment. “And you’d know that secret would you, with your hawk’s eyes and your heart greedy for knowledge?” She tapped his breast with one twig-finger, and when Merlin looked disconcerted, she laughed.
Merlin hung his head, as if bested. At his feet, Ciar whined to see him distressed. “I will not lie,” said Merlin. “Yes, I would know it. I have walked and sought long to find i
t.”
“Ha!” Lasair Ui Fian stepped back, and squatted down in front of her door, settling the mask of the hag once more over the priestess. “You’ll not have it here. It is all that I have left.” She looked past him, up the slope of the woods, toward the places where men lived in their snug houses. “Even that fool girl who swore she wanted to study with me left when Patrick and his band came tramping through singing of their White Christ. My last acolyte, she ran away with them.” Bitterness soaked her words and Merlin saw the hard glitter of tears in her eyes. “And it was all gone, all of it, save the voice that sleeps and waits.”
Merlin moved forward. Laying down his staff, he knelt before her. “If you would have a acolyte, I would learn from you.”
She gazed at him, and hope shone behind the glittering tears, but only for a moment. She dropped her gaze, and picked at the browning grass between her feet with her twig-like fingers. “No, you wouldn’t,” she muttered harshly. “You don’t want to learn. You want to know.”
On his knees, Merlin leaned forward. He pitched his voice soft and low, a lover’s voice, a seducer’s. “And were you the one to bring me that knowledge, your name would be made great,” he said softly. “You would come to a land of honor and plenty and be given rings by the greatest of rulers.”
Her restless hands stopped their meaningless scrabbling and she lifted her gaze. “Look at me, man.”
Merlin laid one hand softly on his staff. “Look all you want,” he told her. “See whatever you wish.”
Her eyes were green as the heath in the sunlight, and both older and younger than herself. Merlin felt the power of her gaze reaching deep, running along the well-worn grooves of truth and possibility that lay within her heart, and his. “You stand beside kings,” she spoke dreamily, in the way of the oracle. “They are brothers these kings. Mighty men, both. They are not to be defeated by honorable means. One is gone now, taken by stealth and by poison. The other, he is greater than brother or father ever were, but fears the poison. He shakes in the night with fear of it and he knows that fear cripples him. You cannot bear to see this fear for you know the greatness of the man. He is brother in your heart, but he is your vengeance too. Oh, yes, your vengeance and your triumph is this father of dragons. He sent you here. You told him the means to guard against fear and future could be found in these hills. You come to walk the ancient ways. You have heard the old names and the old wisdom. You would drink from that fountain at my hands… there is reverence in you… you understand the deep roots… you…
“No!” she shrieked the word, throwing herself backwards into the folds of the blanket that covered her doorway,
“Lasair Ui Fian, look at me!” commanded Merlin, seducer no more.
“Liar!” She screamed, scrambled backwards, her blanket falling about her ridiculously. “You try to hide your heart behind your eyes but even you cannot hide so deep.”
“Look at me, and you will see the truth,” Merlin grasped her wrist and its bones dug into his palm. “You can see. Your power will show you the truth!”
But she tore herself away with a strength he would not have guessed she had. “Yes, I am shown the truth, hawk-eyed man!” she spat. “I see you know where power lies, and you come to claim it.” She huddled beneath her blanket, drawing in on herself, holding all she knew behind the walls she had built within her soul. “You hide too much too deeply, and will one day be hidden from all seeking. Oh, yes.” She grinned again, the horrible gaping leer with which she had first greeted him. “It is true I am not blind. I see the long darkness.” Her voice fell, growing low as her eyes grew distant. The blanket slipped from her grip, dropping to the ground. “The age, the time of the world creeping by, the worms seeking and seeking but gaining nothing from your flesh. Frozen, trapped, eyes fixed on a single point as the flies gather and the waters rise and fall and…” She stopped, swaying on her knees, her eyes blinking. She raised her hands, brushing aside nothing he could see. Then, her ruined face broke into a scowl of unbearable fear. “Get away from me!” she screamed at him, her trembling arm reaching out to sketch old signs of warding. “Demon! Death bringer! Get away!”
Screaming, she scrabbled back into her house, diving beneath her blanket. Merlin did not try to follow her. He stood and he bowed to the trembling, weeping form he could no longer see. With a word to Ciar, he walked up the slopes into the woods. Only when he was sure he was out of sight and hearing of the hovel and its ancient occupant, Merlin turned and squatted on his heels before his hound. Gently, he touched the tip of his staff to the beast’s head.
“Now then, Ciar. There was a girl in that house with the old woman. She left sometime ago, and I need to know where she went. You caught her scent, good dog, I know that you did. Will you find her for me?”
The dog looked into Merlin’s eyes for a long moment and then barked once, a cheerful, agreeable sound. The sorcerer stood back, and let the hound nose about at his feet for a bit. Then, Ciar barked again and loped off up the slopes on a straight and steady track that none but himself could see.
Smiling to himself, Merlin followed the dog into the woods.
*****
For three days Merlin followed where the hound led. They crossed streams and rivers and trekked through many fair woods aflame with the colors of autumn, always upwards until they reached the windy heights of the western hills. There, he came to a small dwelling-place, well-fenced, with a cross hung upon the archway of its gate. Just outside the gate, a stout woman with a wagging dewlap tended a flock of grey geese. She wore a plain brown cloak over a simple white dress girdled with braided leather. She had her hems tucked into the belt, exposing her sandaled feet, and bare, thick legs. Her only ornament was the wooden cross hung on a thong about her neck. She glowered as she saw him approach with his loping hound. Merlin patted Ciar and commanded him to sit a distance away while he approached the woman.
“God be with you, Sister,” he saluted her.
“And with you, stranger,” she said, but there was no sincerity in the greeting as she took in his face, his sword and his staff. “And what brings you to this house?”
“I am seeking a woman of the Ui Fian here.”
She squinted at his face again, and shook her heavy head. “No one such as that here.” One of the geese honked and waddled away from the rest of the flock. The woman flicked her switch, and the bird meandered obediently back. “The only ones here are daughters of Christ.”
“It may be she took a new name when she came to Christ,” said Merlin patiently. He leaned heavily on his staff, showing more weariness than he truly felt.
She shrugged, but did not turn her attention from the geese. “It may be. Many do.”
“May I have leave to inquire after her with the other sisters?”
That made the goose woman turn to him, as he had known it would. “We are a house of women here. You are not of the brethren of Christ,” she snapped the accusation and
accompanied it with another hard look. “You have no foundation to enter here.”
“Forgive me, Sister,” Merlin replied, bowing as humbly before the goose woman as he had before the king. “But I have walked a long way, and my errand is urgent.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Who are you that you come to claim her?”
Ah. Now he understood the hostility. Even now that most of this isle followed the Christian rite, there were many families who were less than pleased when their marriageable daughters declared their intentions to join a poor house of women and live the life of a perpetual virgin. “I do not come to claim her, only to speak with her.”
“But who are you?” demanded the goose-woman again.
Merlin spread his hands. “I am not brother, nor son, nor husband, nor father, nor chief, nor master. I am only another seeker who would learn what she can tell me. Herewith, is my token to the maintenance of this place and this house.” He reached into his purse and held out two silver rings.
“Hmph,” grunted the woman, but she took the rings and tucked them into her sleeve.
She peered at him again, and Merlin spoke mildly, leaning there on his staff. “You see, I have no bad intention, nor do I mean to trouble this house. I only wish to speak with she who was once the daughter of the Ui Fion, who turned aside from witchcraft to come to Christ.”
The goose-woman grunted again, and then said, “There is a woman of the Ui Fion here. Her name is Agnes now. You may wait while I see if she’s about. Don’t let the geese stray.” She stumped through the gate.
Merlin settled onto his heels to wait. Patiently, he watched the grey geese, who honked and chattered and pulled at the weeds and preened, and did not one of them stray from their patch of grass where their mistress left them.
Jim Baen’s Universe Page 41