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by A. A. Attanasio

  always carefully hid me in her hovel before they arrived.

  Throughout her pregnancy, she had managed to keep her condition secret, and though her labor had been

  grotesquely difficult, she had birthed me with help only from the angels.

  Oh, yes, the angels visited her daily. I saw them as

  clearly as I did when I was a spirit myself. Tattered in fire and with their huge, luminous eyes, they attended her twice each day, at dusk, when she knelt before her tiny altar of green river-stones and prayed.

  They ignored me, and try as I might, I could never

  quite hear what they said to her. Maybe they just shared her prayers. Their voices sounded like glass chimes in a languid breeze.

  Sometimes, at the high end of the meadow, near the

  stand of copper beeches where she enjoyed praying

  outdoors, the unicorn came to her. Silver-hoofed and blue as moonlight, the silken creature with its perilous beauty appeared.

  It bowed its knurled horn to the ground and waited

  patiently in lustrous silence while Optima prayed. The harping of the breeze invariably quieted in its presence.

  Then, Optima would cross herself, sit back among asters and cinquefoil, and the unicorn would approach with

  majestic slowness and rest its velvet muzzle in her lap.

  The green glass of its eyes watched her serenely,

  and at that placid moment I could touch it, too. Strangely, my touch rippled along its length as though I had disturbed a surface of shining water, and deep in my brain a blossom opened into a fragrance that smelled of heaven.

  *

  The Saxons, displeased with the demise of their

  generous patron, swoop down from the north and out of their island encampments to the south with a vicious fury.

  As they assemble their massive war party outside

  Londinium, Ambrosius, revenge fulfilled, secludes himself in the opulent governor's palace and, much to his brother's chagrin and Morgeu's irate despair, drinks opium-laced wine and sports with young women day and night.

  His fate complete, he has no intensity or focus in the war room, and soon he no longer appears in council.

  Theo, lacking the stomach for military adventures or

  their spoils, leaves daily command of the army to Gorlois.

  The quaestor strives with Morgeu to break the spell of his brother's debauchery. All to no avail.

  Ambrosius ignores his brother, and when he

  drunkenly paws at Morgeu, she angrily withdraws and

  locks herself in her wing of the palace. By then, her magic reveals to her what Merlinus already knows: that proud Ambrosius will never be hers, for he has already married death.

  Deprived of the tactical cunning and lethal intuition of his daughter, Gorlois squanders the army's resources on flamboyant attacks against the Saxons that, while

  victorious, cost unnecessary lives. Within a few weeks of their greatest victory, the army begins to break up.

  Merlinus stays in his corner of the palace, afraid to walk the streets of Londinium. Afraid because he spies the enormous figure of the Furor striding the horizon, wearing fog for a beard and ocean stars in his wild hair.

  By the war god's presence, the wizard knows that

  the Britons are ultimately doomed if they stay in the old capital. He urges Theo to abandon his brother, take the greater bulk of the troops, and retreat west. But, of course, Theo would never leave his brother's side.

  Merlinus' admonitions against the Dragon Lord grow

  more insistent, and Ambrosius stops speaking with him.

  Even then, Merlinus is afraid to use the full force of his magic on him. If he does, he knows the Furor will hear of it.

  So, the wizard waits in his chambers and peeks through the draperies at the giant of war wading in the river.

  The waiting ends at midsummer, when the Saxons,

  having whittled the British army down to archers and a small phalanx of infantry, array themselves outside the city wall. Their chief, Hengist, a square warrior crowned with a bear skull, sends the message that unless he is paid his tribute of gold in full, he will ally with the Gaels, with the very tribes he had been hired to attack for Balbus Gaius Cocceius.

  That treachery breaks Ambrosius' dissolute spell,

  and aroused to action, the Dragon Lord insists on leading a raid against Hengist's camp.

  In the pink marble throne room, with statues of

  emperors watching mutely from among billowy draperies of Damascus silk, Merlinus witnesses the loud arguments

  between Ambrosius and Theo. With fearful precognition, the wizard recognizes that this, too, is necessary. Every hurtful word flung between the brothers has been precut in the crystal of time. Ambrosius is a lost man in a lost world.

  Nothing can save him. And yet—

  Theo's tearful appeal to Merlinus to stop Ambrosius,

  after his own desperately angry attempts have failed,

  forces him to use magic.

  He speaks sleep to the guards outside the Dragon

  Lord's palace suite and barges in on Ambrosius as he dons his armor. "Blow off, you old fart!" he commands halfheartedly. "There's killing to be done. I've no time for your philosophical prattle."

  Merlinus warns him outright, "All your time will be spent if you leave this citadel today."

  "Are you cursing me, then?" he asks mockingly, and reaches for his sword.

  "Use it," Merlinus demands, pointing to his weapon.

  "Kill me if you must—yet, my warning remains."

  He lowers the sword and scowls at the wizard. "How did you get in here anyway?" He waves that question aside. "Never mind. I don't want to know." He sheathes his sword and tightens the straps of his buckler. "Look, I know you're something more than you pretend. I know it was you who found the gold for us. Without you, we wouldn't be here now. So, you feel you have some part in what is

  happening. But you don't. Something larger owns my fate.

  And by that I know my time is up."

  Merlinus must make an effort to close his mouth.

  "You want to die?"

  "I wouldn't say that, old man. But I'm going to die.

  It's a palpable feeling—like hunger, or thirst. I've felt it since I killed Cocceius. My time is done."

  "Not true," Merlinus says, though his words sound hollow. "Tell yourself a better story."

  Ambrosius just smiles, cold and mirthless. As he

  passes the wizard, he puts a hand on his shoulder and says quietly, "Thank you, old man—whoever you are."

  Merlinus says no more, and Ambrosius passes from

  the room, a shade. The wizard follows him into the corridor and wakes the guards, and together they accompany him to the courtyard, where he rallies his troops.

  Even Theo sees that it is hopeless to try dissuading

  him, and he runs to get his armor. Gorlois takes up the dragon banner and rides with Ambrosius at the head of the war party. By the time Theo charges out of the gate, the archers are already firing into Hengist's camp.

  Saxons swarm from their hide-covered tents, hefting

  large leather shields to catch the arrows as they run.

  Merlinus climbs the city wall to watch from the

  vantage of the battlements, and he reaches the ramparts facing the enemy camp as the somber figures clash.

  Morgeu is already there, her pale face bright with

  attentiveness, her fists clenched. "Come back!" she shouts as her father circles to the rear of the troops to bring up the pikemen. "Come back!"

  Gorlois raises the dragon banner in

  acknowledgment, his expression unreadable behind his

  bronze mask. Arm extended in Roman salute, he canters back into battle.

  "Ambrosius is mad!" Morgeu calls. She looks at Merlinus with a sharp, glittery fear in her eyes. "Stop him!"

  "I can't stop the Dragon Lord," he says, twisting his beard nervously.
>
  "Not the Dragon Lord, you fool! Stop my father. You have the chanting power. Make him come back to me."

  Merlinus faces her delirious, shrill stare, afraid. If he stops Gorlois, he might endanger Theo. What power the wizard might have, he must reserve for protecting Theo.

  He shakes his head solemnly.

  "Monster!" She turns her wrathful face toward the battlefield and begins singing a slithery spell. There is no power behind it, just fright, and soon her voice dims away as the tragedy meshing below enraptures her with its

  horror.

  The mounted British archers slay a score of armor-

  clad Saxons for every one of their number whose horse is hacked out from under, the knives of the enemy cutting greedily into groin and face.

  The infantry fling their spears and charge in a

  menacing wedge that scatters Saxons and opens a

  highway of death into the heart of their camp.

  The Dragon Lord and his guard fly down that bloody

  path, and Gorlois and his soldiers beat back the closing flanks as long as they can. Regardless of Morgeu's fears, Gorlois has no intention of sacrificing himself for anyone, and when Saxon reinforcements charge from the woods

  above the river, he waves his crimson sword, ordering a retreat.

  Ambrosius pays him no heed and flings his steed

  into the wall of warriors surrounding their leader. Arrows spent, his sword gleaming in the summer sun, he swoops down and comes up with Hengist's head spinning blood.

  Theo gallops toward him, riding as Merlinus has

  never seen him ride, holding on with legs alone as he fires missiles into a crowd swarming with murderous frenzy

  around his brother. He charges past Gorlois and his men and screams for them to follow. Even from their distance, Morgeu and the wizard can see the dark anger on his face at Gorlois' retreat.

  Inspired by Theo's mad attack, many of Gorlois'

  men and the other troops who have fallen back rally and charge again. Not Gorlois. Coolly, he watches Theo

  bounding over the dead bodies, trampling corpses, firing the last of his arrows into the swirling throng of yowling

  Saxons. Their yells slash across the warm river breeze like strokes of crude paints, staining the air with the savage brilliance of death.

  Then the Dragon Lord's horse goes down under

  him, and he vanishes in the seething mass of barbarians.

  The ravenous ghoul-cries of the Saxons change pitch, and the rag-body of Ambrosius rises up on their spears. Their howlings break again into angry, shrill squalls as Theo and his men hack into their flank.

  Merlinus begins chanting. Sighting along the length

  of his staff, he thinks he sees the raspy glimmer of scales in the speed-blur behind Theo. The dragon-magus! He calls out a magical spell, and then he does see it.

  Luminously ruffled as the borealis, its fiery, pleated flesh shimmering in thermal surges, Wray Vitki, the man-become-dragon, rises behind Theo, huge as an avalanche and invisible to all eyes but the wizard's—and the Furor's.

  The giant god astride the muddy dregs of the

  horizon raises his hammerhead fists, his one eye screwed tight with wrath. Yet even he stands impuissant before the fatefulness of the moment.

  Sulfur yellow eyes ablaze like shards of the sun, the dragon envelops Theo in the electric tangles of its body, and together they advance. The lightning of its talons slashes and the flameblow of its tail whips.

  A wounded beast, the Saxon army thrashes before

  the overwhelming ferocity of the dragon, and Ambrosius'

  body disappears in the melee. Theo bolts directly into the midst of the riot. Handling his horse with demonic

  intelligence, he hops in flying leaps among knots of

  struggling foot soldiers, hewing at the barbarians, then rearing back and striking with flashing fore-hooves before curvetting sideways and plunging headlong into the fray from behind the enemy. In that way, he chops the Saxon force into small, isolated pieces.

  Once Gorlois sees that the battle has turned, he

  musters the rest of his men with valiant cries.

  "No!" Morgeu bawls.

  The duke hears her and salutes again, rearing his

  horse back to drive his men on.

  "No!" Morgeu screams. "It's magic! Sorcery!

  Retreat!"

  Gorlois burns with determination to lead the decisive charge that will break the Saxons' threat. He will not be outdone by a stable master in armor. Dragon banner tilted like a lance, he charges into the flailing mob.

  If he could see the dragon-magus, he would swerve

  his attack to come in behind, adding dragonforce to his assault. Instead, unaware of its behemoth presence, he

  rides aslant its fire-blown flank and directly into the scramming frenzy of the barbarians. It is a good tactical choice but ignorant of the supernatural power surrounding him.

  A panicky Saxon flings his ax wildly, and the

  somersaulting weapon whirls out of the churning dust and strikes Gorlois' horse between the eyes.

  Flung violently forward, the duke crashes to the

  ground before the fleeing barbarians like a brutal gift from the Furor. Knives saw through the joints of his armor, and Gorlois' limbs and head fly in separate directions before his infuriated men descend on his killers.

  Morgeu wails and flings herself at Merlinus. "You!

  You killed him!"

  Reflexively, Merlinus sweeps his staff between

  them, and she flies backward and crashes against the

  stone parapet far more violently than he intended.

  Ugly with rage, she glares at him through purple

  vehemence. "Demon!" she calls, clutching at the air with spasming hands, trying to rend the very sight of him. "Kill me!" She comes forward on her knees, clawing at empty space. "Kill me now! Or I swear by the Mother of God, I will kill you!"

  The wizard points his staff at her, arm quivering. He only means to ward her off, but she thinks he intends to strike her dead with magic. She flings her arms out and her head back, eager to die. And when the blow does not

  come, she jerks upright, a grueling malice on her twisted features. "They cut him in pieces!" she screams.

  Before her implacable violence, Merlinus cannot

  speak. He gazes at her, stricken—and she staggers

  backward, seething, retching for breath. She seems about to convulse. Instead, she curses him in a thwacking voice,

  "Damn—you—to hell—Lailoken!"

  She flees down the battlement ramp and disappears

  through a bartizan doorway.

  On the battlefield, the repulse of the Saxons breaks

  into a rout. Mounted soldiers chase down the banks of the brown river and up the green rolling slopes into the enemy camps. The rest is no more than murder, and Merlinus

  averts his gaze to the horizon.

  The Furor stands there, a mighty shadow-shape in

  the thunderheads that bulk above the shining estuary of the Tamesis. The wails of his slaughtered minions flit about him. Even so, the deaths of the Dragon Lord and his duke please this spirit of war.

  Merlinus can tell, for the Furor smiles in his

  direction, the fathoms of darkness in his empty eye filling the wizard with a cold despair for all the world of God.

  *

  That night, a comet appears among the silent

  clamoring of the stars. The long, thin green feather of light shines like an eerie ghost banner above the smoldering bonfires that illuminate the graves where the Dragon Lord and his fallen lie.

  Bishops shake censers and murmur prayers from

  the scaffolds erected under the city wall. A high mass solemnly enacts the passion and resurrection, and choirs sing monodic liturgical threnodies above the city crowds that fill the fields.

  From the stately marble heights of the governor's

  palace, Theo and the m
ilitary commanders watch the

  sacred ceremonies honoring the passage of Ambrosius

  Aurelianus and his warriors to heaven. At the conclusion of the majestic rites, the people file past the central bonfire, light torches from the flames, and march mournfully back into the city, bearing with them the light that last shone on their hero.

  For a long time after the citizens have returned

  behind the city's wall, Theo stands at the balcony rail gazing down into the throbbing crimson glow of the dying fire. Despite the avid protection of Wray Vitki’s dragon, he has been wounded, his left shoulder gouged by a boar

  spear. Cauterized and bound, the wound pulses painfully, yet he stands unmoving.

  The commanders, all of them exhausted, many

  wounded as badly or worse than he, remain at his side—

  good Romans, indifferent to pain, alert to suffering.

  Merlinus knows they wait for some acknowledgment from Theo, and he feels into the young warrior with his heartflow and experiences a hideous sorrow and fear. He is alone, the last Aurelianus. He feels utterly alone.

  "The comet that shines above," one of the

  commanders says finally, daring to break the silence, "is the passage of noble Ambrosius to heaven. A great soul has departed."

  Murmurs of agreement pass among the mourners.

  "No," Merlinus declares, and turns to face the gathered soldiers. They gaze back at him appalled, and several flex as though about to haul him away. Still, he continues, "A great soul has come to Earth today. He himself does not know it. He is numb with the terrible killing today. And that is his name. Terrible." The wizard pronounces it in Latin. "His name shall be known in the language of his enemies, who have learned the truth of that name today. In the dialect of his foes, he is Uther."

  Theo's stare budges, and he faces about and looks at Merlinus and the men around him, blinking, head tilted as if trying to listen to the wizard through the noisy killing of men.

  "Uther," Merlinus repeats. "Terrible is the death of a brother. Terrible is the death of a people. Terrible is the soul that must carry this pain and make a life of it for the people that remain."

  The wizard leans on the balustrade and points his

  staff at the comet. " That is the dragon banner of your ancestors—the pen-dragon—the soul of your brother gone from him to you. Now you are no longer Theodosius