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by A. A. Attanasio

  believes he would shatter like glass.

  *

  In the summer weeks after the death of Hengist and

  the rout of the Saxons, the Furor stands stunned at the mouth of the Tamesis. One wolf hide boot on Thanet Isle, the other on the Island of Tamesa, he stares out into the North Sea with that numb look gods sometimes get when the timewind shifts unexpectedly.

  Usually, gods just blow away with those destinal

  swerves, quickly returning to their astral kingdoms in the Storm Tree. The Furor has sworn to take these West Isles, and he will not budge. He sinks his might into his stance and holds on as time-shadows realign around him like vale mist rolling over the land. Only the sea remains stable. The steel blade of the ocean's horizon keeps him steady.

  Vertigo lasts only moments for the colossal god, yet

  weeks will pass in the world of people and demons.

  The four demons conjured from the Gulf by the

  Furor's magic stagger about the foggy terrain furious at the slaughter of their Saxon hordes. They blame surprise. No

  one saw the dragon-magus coming. They blame Lailoken.

  He brought the dragon-magus into the battle. They blame each other. Each was so intent on savoring the carnage, none had the clarity to direct the storm-warriors.

  The demons hiss angrily at the Furor, trying to break the transfixed stare of his one mad eye. The god is their puppet, and his strings have tangled in the buffeting timewind.

  The broken illusion of his power is dangerous, for by these lapses he may come to realize that the demons are not in his control at all. Then, he will soon grasp that he has not, in fact, summoned them from the Gulf-—but,

  rather, that they have leaped from the Deep to seize him, the god with the most power. He is their tool. They need him to inflame the millions in the organic frenzy on the planet's surface, to lead them against their timeless enemy—the Fire Lords.

  The demons sizzle like lightning, hoping to jolt the

  god alert. That proves futile. And soon the demons float away, looking for new ways to make trouble for their old comrade Lailoken.

  Soon, they find Morgeu hooded and cloaked in

  green, riding west across the turf of the Deva highlands.

  She is insane with grief, and Ethiops, who has worked her before, wants to work her now.

  The others stop him. "Let her unspool her grief,"

  they advise. "It will lead her where we want. When her despair hardens to vengeance, she will call for us."

  Ahead of her, the demons fly, spreading nightmares

  and evil omens, clearing the terrain of bandit gangs and Pictish war parties. Blessed by demons, Morgeu floats west to Cymru. She gallops harder the farther she gets from her dead father's kingdom, returning to her mother's land like a wave remembering the sea.

  *

  Ygrane prefers solitude. The perfect seclusion of her childhood, when she wandered the woods near her village, gathering berries in summer, kindling in winter, haunts her with nostalgia. In those early days, she luxuriated among the wonder, beauty, and strength of the hilly forests. In fading sunlight, she danced with the faerie. By moonlight, she cavorted with the Sid.

  The elves put the whole village to sleep so that they could show her secret places. They whisked her to lunar-lit glades deep in craggy gorges, where the Piper's music called the Dragon close enough to make trees tremble and blue fire dance on the branch-tips. Sometimes, they

  actually carried her into the hollow hills to hear the Dragon's dreamsong on its way out to the stars, resonating in the planet's sinuses.

  Twenty years have elapsed since last she heard the

  Dragon's eerie singing. She is too busy serving as queen to dance and cavort with the pale people. And the Sid leave her alone, because they want her working for them in the day world, doing all she can to stop the Furor from raiding their hills and stealing land and magic.

  To protect her from the Furor's minions, her fiana follow her everywhere. When she must have solitude, she has no choice but to use her magic to free a few hours for herself.

  Word of Gorlois' death forced her to leave her fiana asleep in the stables so she could ride alone into the woods to rail at the Sid for ever having given her to that man. A panic of grief clutched her then for her daughter Morgeu, and she tried and tried to find her with her magic and failed.

  Days later, the Sid brought news that the Dark

  Dweller from the House of Fog who serves the Fire Lords has found her a husband: a young Roman king of noble

  birth yet humble upbringing. By that trait—a simple

  childhood—this king offers her the promise of destiny. The powerful emotions this stirs brought her again to the forest alone, her fiana left slumbering at the mead table this time.

  She learned nothing new of herself, yet her solitude

  renewed for her what she does know: Into this life she has come to serve her people, and for that she has endured Raglaw's weird trances, the Druids' political marriage to the despicable Gorlois, and the mothering of an embittered child.

  If this Uther Pendragon, whom Myrddin has found

  by his demonic magic, is truly a man she can love, he will lift her life to a higher spiral. It dizzies her thinking about it.

  Amorous love—passion—the mortal fusion of heartfelt

  fidelity with a strange man made familiar—she must reach back lifetimes to remember that joy. But what kind of joy can there be when such a union comes from the

  necessities of war?

  That question burns hottest on the afternoon Falon

  brings word that Dun Mane summons her. The chief of the Druids has come with Kyner and his fanatic Christians to take her to Maridunum, there to meet her new husband.

  This message finds her in a remote, mist-strewn

  valley at the head of the river Usk. Immediately, she casts a spell that lowers her fiana into a rapturous sleep and leaves them on the forest floor guarded by a ring of

  mushrooms.

  At her whistle, herons flap from the floodwater marsh that has made little islands of the forest. Among bedraggled draperies of vine and mossy roots, the unicorn appears. It prances upslope through river-smoke with the weight of sunlight. And it brushes close so that Ygrane mounts by rolling onto its sleek back.

  Contact shocks her with calm, as always. Trance

  and wakefulness merge, faceting reality to cut-gem

  brilliance: Dazzling rags of sun dangle in the galleries of the shadowy bogland like angels—and a pale, upswept

  face flickers briefly among the medicinal dark of ferns.

  "Bright Night," the queen tenderly calls, and dismounts. Stepping away from the unicorn feels heavy as plunging out of water onto land. "Have you found Morgeu?"

  Bright Night approaches barefoot down a lily-

  padded lane, garbed in simple green tunic yielding no hint of his high station among the Sid. Hair lank and unkempt, visage transparently thin, a shadow of himself, he visibly brightens at her touch. "No, sister. I have not found Morgeu. The faerie think she hides among Dark Dwellers."

  The heaviness in the queen shifts all its weight into her chest, and her heart winces painfully with the strain.

  Seeing this, the prince pushes toward another

  subject. "The faeries tell me, you have a new husband.

  Another Roman."

  Ygrane calls the unicorn closer. "You've been

  melancholy again. Come. Take strength." She needs contact with the supercelestial to lighten her maternal dread and make room in her heart for more than Morgeu.

  The animal nudges her and lights up all the empty spaces within her. Now there is room for her internal misery over her daughter, as well as anxious doubts about herself as mother, wife, woman. Only her status as queen feels

  secure in this abyss of loss called life.

  She beckons the prince to approach the unicorn,

  and he declines by stopping at the water's edge. "The
animal is unhappy at my touch."

  Even as he speaks, it shies away, remembering

  when this Celtic god wanted to sacrifice it to the Dragon.

  Ygrane lets it go and peers into the elf's green eyes. "I've told you to come to me when the melancholy is strong."

  She brushes back his hair and lays her hands against his temples, willing vigor into him. In a moment, his

  transparency fills in, and he smiles.

  "Thank you, sister. I should have come sooner." He would have, too—his despair has blackened toward

  suicidal thoughts of raiding the Aesir in the Great Tree—

  but he is unhappy using the witch-queen's magic for his benefit when all Cymru needs her.

  "If I cannot help you, prince of the Sid, what good is this magic to me or to any of the people? We are only as strong as our gods." The feline width of her face has always made her appear more elfin than human to Bright Night, and hearing her speak of herself as a person seems odd.

  "Why are your fiana asleep—again?" he asks, looking at the shining bodies slumped in pools of sunlight atop a nearby knoll.

  "I wanted solitude." She squeezes his shoulders affectionately when she notices his wince of concern at disturbing her. "Maybe I felt your melancholy."

  "Maybe what you feel is the hope of love—" he suggests. "Your husband is on his way."

  Ygrane admits this possibility with a small shrug. "I am the soul of a woman."

  "In woman's flesh." Bright Night wants to see her happy, to feel better about taking from her the happy magic he needs. "You've heard that the hill villages dance the Sun's Wheel for you and the new king?"

  The orgiastic Dance of the Sun Wheel began in

  early human times to celebrate life. This erotic frenzy continues only in the most isolated communities, dung-walled villages untainted by the Romans. "Yes—I have heard," the queen admits with a slow, proud smile.

  "Will you dance the Wheel with them, as the queens of old once danced?"

  Ygrane frowns, looking both perplexed and wise.

  "To be honest, brother, I did not expect Myrddin to succeed at all, let alone this soon. And now Dun Mane and Kyner have come for me, and I do not wish to go. Not yet."

  "Don't you trust Raglaw's vision? The Dark Dweller found the man she saw with her long sight."

  "Another Roman husband."

  "I feel the same. No vision is certain in these

  turbulent times. The timewind blows where it lists. This man, Uther Pendragon, is of Gorlois' people. You've had enough of them for this lifetime." His eyes brighten with radiance from an unexpected future. "Marry me, instead."

  Ygrane unfurls a dark laugh and pushes him away.

  "I won't ever try that again. Those children suffer."

  "And mortal children do not?"

  "Not in the same way. We live and die by our animal passions. But the blood of gods—there are fevers in that blood that scald mortal flesh with impossible longings. I won't make that mistake again. No." Her adamant stare holds the prince so tightly he feels chastened. "Morgeu may well give herself to the Dark Dwellers and go mad. But that madness comes from the demons, not from within her.

  I won't put the gods' craziness in a child again."

  Bright Night's face looks winter-thin. Daylight, even as green and chill as it is here among the flooded tree coves, has worn him out. The queen's rejection, righteous and immutable, defeats his will to stay in the scalding daylight, and he fades away. "I will search for Morgeu again tonight," his faint promise wavers after him.

  A shiver of remorse passes through Ygrane for

  overpowering the prince. She wants to help him. She

  wants to help them all—the Sid, the Druids, her people, and the Britons as well. The immortal queen within her wants to save them all from the invaders. As she has done in her past lives.

  This life is different, Ygrane tells the immortal queen. This time many of our own people don't believe in you. And the man I must marry does not believe in you.

  Silence engorges her. By this, she knows that what

  she thinks is not important. She alone must believe in the immortal queen who has gathered her into this body.

  The unicorn nuzzles her again, and the silence from

  the queen at the hub of herself becomes beautiful and mysterious.

  Ygrane rolls onto the unicorn's back, and they go

  away over the water in a bounding flight that scatters herons. The soft thunder of their wings and the creak of their startled cries slip into the dreams of the fiana and become the thud of boats striking shore and timber crying under the nightmare weight of armed Saxons.

  *

  Uther refuses to enter the City of the Legion. The

  memory of his time there with his brother is too sharp, and he encamps on the moors while the cavalry trained by the Dragon Lord return to their homes. Before a shimmering black wall of windy banners on the parade grounds outside the citadel, the king installs the highest-ranked survivor of Ambrosius' personal guard military commander of the city and gives him the Dragon Lord's mansion.

  The next day, with the first agate streaks of dawn,

  Uther breaks camp, and he and Merlinus, the bishop, and a handful of black-clad cavalry archers depart for the Saxon Coast. Gorlois's lean-faced commanders and their men follow.

  Ambrosius' winter campaign has been thorough,

  and there are no signs of banditry or brigands' mischief in the countryside—no demolished churches or slag heaps of torched villages. The people of the hills greet the parade enthusiastically, as relieved as the farmers of the lowlands.

  And the king and his entourage enjoy an uneventful passage through the peninsular kingdom to Gorlois'

  seacoast fortress at Tintagel.

  Throughout the journey, Merlinus reaches out with

  his heartflow for the malicious presence of Morgeu. She is not to be found. Even at the castle, no one has seen her.

  Has she gone to her mother's? he wonders. Is she lurking for us among the Celts?

  To honor the fallen duke, Uther remains several

  days at Tintagel, attending church services, eulogizing his comrade in arms, and arranging for Gorlois' nephew and chief military commander, Marcus Domnoni, to assume.the dukedom.

  Marcus did not witness Uther's battle frenzy outside

  Londinium, for he stayed in the west to guard the coast.

  The awe he hears in the accounts of his soldiers who were there moves him. And when the time comes to offer his pledge, his voice has a timbre of esteem for a fellow warrior.

  That deference is not lost on the other fort

  commanders of the coastal towns who defended the

  kingdom in the duke's absence. They and their

  predecessors have been under attack by sea rovers for half a century until the fiana intervened, and they are eager for a strong military monarch open-minded enough to hold on to that alliance.

  With the old duke dead, the commanders can speak

  freely about their respect for Ygrane, who has never

  denied their numerous pleas despite Gorlois' cold

  arrogance toward her. The testimony of these battle-

  hardened battle-lords impresses Uther and whets even

  more his curiosity about the warrior-queen.

  On a beryl morning sparkling with spume, the king

  and his men load their nervous horses on a deep-keeled ship and bid farewell to their countrymen. Riochatus, bishop of the Britons, and a dozen of his clerics

  accompany them. The bishop displays his gold-plated

  crozier and ruby-studded cross-staff prominently at the bow.

  After reciting a benediction over the kneeling king

  and crew, the gaunt churchman, looking cadaverous with impending seasickness, retreats belowdecks in a flurry of robes and wisping incense.

  Sailors hoist the dragon flag and cast off. The

  lumbering transport vessel pitches and yaws in t
he high tide. The white spires and bright pennants of Tintagel castle dwindle into hazy distances of spindrift and

  whitecaps and wheeling, piping gulls.

  Uther Pendragon stands tall at the bow, dressed in

  the black leather of a common cavalry soldier to baffle possible assassins among the Celts. He holds his head high between crozier and cross-staff, emblems of his faith.

  Proud despite his doubts, he stares into a future none on board could guess.

  *

  Demons search for the unicorn. They want to rip

  apart the corrupter of Lailoken before the beast can further ensnare their old friend. Yet even their laser stares cannot find the solar creature.

  At the crown of the Great Tree, on the Raven

  Branch, the unicorn floats entranced by its kinship with the emptiness of the void. The Earth rolls under it,

  remembering everything while the unicorn forgets, drifting like music.

  Gradually, consciousness hardens again around

  memories, and the celestial animal drifts lower, away from the Raven Branch. Stars pull away like icy trees glinting in the darkness. Clouds spread their feathers. Lakes and rivers shine on the sun-struck limb of the world like precious metals.

  Down the unicorn sinks, weighted with memories

  and promises. The demons sense it when it enters the

  lower atmosphere, though they cannot find it. The unicorn has made itself the color of water. And the stars in their vast courses shine their rays right through it.

  *

  Heralds traveled ahead during the high king's stay

  on the Saxon Coast and announced to the queen of the

  Celts the great hope of Uther Pendragon to counsel with her and fulfill the peoples' mutual desire for their union.

  By her invitation, the king's boat docks at the river-mouth that leads to Maridunum and is greeted by a mob of villagers, farmers, herdsmen, traders, and cross-bearing evangelists, all elbowing for a better view. None of the queen's men are in sight.

  With much panoply of unfurling banners, pealing

  trumpets, brattling drums, and billowing censers, the Bishop Riochatus descends, followed by his clerics and the small, armed party of the king's men, Uther hidden among them. Merlinus brings up the rear, behind the surgeon, livery grooms, and energetic musicians, keeping himself well out of sight amidst baggage handlers.