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by A. A. Attanasio

  After dinner, Uther and Ygrane call him aside, and

  the three retreat to the gallery at the back of the mansio.

  The clear, moonless night shimmers with stars above the dark grounds and torchlit battlements.

  "You must tell him everything, Myrddin," Ygrane says to her spirit reckoner as she motions for him to sit opposite her and Uther at a bare slate table. A lone oil lamp shines from a tall trivet under the vine-hung arbor roof. By that wan glow, the two sitting close and holding hands, golden crowns hoarding light, appear to Merlinus like the primal pair from a beautiful, archetypal world.

  "From the first, I want there to be no secrets between my husband and me."

  "I have told him almost everything already, my lady."

  Merlinus leans his staff against the rune-carved settle as he sits.

  "Almost everything?" Uther says, baffled. "What are you talking about, Merlinus?"

  "Lord"—Merlinus lowers his head deferentially—

  "you already know I am a demon won to goodness by my good mother's sacrifice. And you know I worked what

  magic I possess to elevate your brother."

  Uther nods impatiently.

  "What you must know now is that I was sent to find you." Merlinus commences the story of Raglaw and her vision of him, and how the soil and seed of that fate has been worked and planted years earlier when Optima

  herself revealed his human destiny to the demon visitor.

  Merlinus tells him, also, of the unicorn.

  Uther listens raptly, still spelled by the happy

  surprise of discovering that the vivacious and kindly woman he met earlier that day in the forest shrine is to be the wife he once dreaded meeting. "So, nothing has changed, then," the king concludes after this tale is done.

  "All three of us, it would seem, are unlikely players, mere servants of God."

  Merlinus directs his attention to the queen. "Lady, forgive my probing, but I must know—is Morgeu capable of treason? Could she attempt to usurp your position by

  force?"

  "Myrddin, she is not the child you remember from your last time with me," Ygrane acknowledges, her voice weak with unhappiness. "She has magic now. Terrible magic. From what I see in trance, she has given herself to the black arts."

  Merlinus stops his nervous hand from tugging at his

  beard. "Lady, in trance I, too, have seen her—and she was in the company of a demon."

  Ygrane's distraught features cloud darker. "Yes, that sounds like the sad truth. There is an ancient tradition of demon-worship among a cult of my people who call

  themselves the Y Mamau. Fanatics, the lot of them. Yes; and if they had their way, the king-sacrifices of ancient times would be revived, so I'm told. They are conjure-warriors—evoking spirits of the dead to aid them on the battlefield. They hope to use my magic against me. I fear Morgeu has joined their dark fold."

  Upon hearing this, the wizard's face clouds over.

  Uther comes up alongside him. "Too much presses us tonight," he speaks, crossing his arms over his body and looking to the queen. "Now I must know everything. You must tell me what your magic is, Ygrane. Not for me to censure, but to know. Where does it come from?"

  She moves closer to him and shakes her head

  gently. "Don't look so worried, Uther. As Merlinus will attest, I am not evil. I serve our people, in a Celtic way. It is as I told you in the shrine: We believe the soul is immortal.

  When the body dies, the soul goes on, to another body.

  This has happened time and again, through every form capable of life, through every severity and goodness. And it will go on until the soul has experienced everything and is worthy of returning to God. For God knows all, and it is not possible to be with God until one has suffered everything."

  "What is your magic? Surely, it must protect as well as bestow."

  "Sometimes I think it is merely its own form of

  hardship." She sighs, unfolding his arms and holding both his hands. "I was a queen in other lives before this, Uther. I tell you this not to boast, but to ... to prepare you."

  "Prepare me?"

  She pauses. "Instruct you, then. I am, as I was, a worshiper of Morrigan, a harsh goddess my people have adored since we migrated west from Scythia, Cimmeria, and India millennia ago. In those long-ago times, we

  sacrificed our kings, strangled them and buried them for our bloodthirsty goddess. Now in this life, Morrigan has rewarded me for my many sacrificed kings by granting me the devotion of her servants, the Daoine Sid—the pale people and elf-folk of legend—who work their magic for me. In this life, I am the one to be sacrificed. And so, I lost the joy of my childhood to Gorlois, and my life as a mother is taken from me with my only child, Morgeu. That is my destiny—the price of my magic."

  "And me?" the king asks. "Am I to be sacrificed, too?"

  "Need you ask, Uther?" Her pale brows lift dolefully.

  "The time we live lives us and speaks for our sacrifice.

  Your brother knew this. And we must not forget. We will lose our united kingdom, unless we are willing to lose ourselves to each other." She holds his hands to her lips. "I tell you this now, because this much I believe: I will suffer a more dear and near loss than my kingdom, young king—

  for to you, I will lose my heart."

  *

  That night, Merlinus does not sleep. He prowls the

  grounds, more than once eliciting angry warnings from the fiana and the king's men posted to guard the mansio. He does not care. His strong eye has revealed too much

  trouble for him to rest.

  He doubts the king and queen sleep this night,

  either. Lights burn in the windows of their separate suites as they contemplate in their own souls the significant threshold they will cross together with the coming day.

  Merlinus cannot accept that evil rests. He

  remembers too well his life as a demon. His mother has

  charged him to go into the world to care for the weak and work order out of chaos. He cannot idly sit by while his king and queen are endangered by Morgeu and her conjure-warriors—the dread Y Mamau. The brails of his heart

  search the night and find no threat.

  The following day, weary as he is, Merlinus

  continues his surveillance. Even as the pavilion tents and brilliant investitures go up, he walks the periphery of the walled city, reaching deep into the forested hills with his demonic power.

  The wedding fulfills itself outdoors with magnificent fanfare. Banners, pennants, and dragon kites fly in a periwinkle sky as both Druids and Christians, separately and together, work their sacred ceremonies upon the royal couple. All the while, Merlinus mingles among the thriving crowd of villagers from Maridunum and the surrounding hamlets, the better to feel out treachery. There is none. At the moment of sacred union, the ecclesiastics release doves of peace, and drumrolls brattle like thunder.

  Feasting and merrymaking break out at once—-

  jugglers, clowns, and acrobats wandering through the

  assembly display their hijinks while musicians play the most joyous songs. Children gambol, round dancers

  interlink, and storytellers chant tales of wonder among foaming kegs of beer and splashing barrels of wine.

  Merlinus watches from the mansio's roofed

  promenade where, at the queen's orders and much to his annoyance, the servants whom he avoided the night before insist on grooming him.

  As the happy day wears on, the wizard is left alone.

  Music billows and hangs in vapors among trees and

  hedges and drifts into the mottled hills. On the platform where they have been wed beneath a floral bower

  displaying an interlocked dragon and unicorn, the royal couple hold long audiences.

  First, they meet with Bishop Riochatus, then with

  Dun Mane and the elders of the Druids, followed by Falon and the commanders of the fiana, after which come the king's men and, finally, var
ious local dignitaries.

  Merlinus, too, is eventually summoned. Somewhat

  selfconsciously, he wears a new robe of midnight blue and coral stitchwork given him by the queen. Dun Mane has presented him with a conical Druids' cap of matching color and pattern, a symbol of wisdom, which he sports proudly.

  With his flowing silver hair and long beard newly

  trimmed for the occasion, the wizard stands amazed and amused by his countenance, every part the sage. Muscular fiana and the king's bowmen in ebony armor escort him as an honor guard through the boisterous festival, and he

  draws curious looks and amazed shouts from the crammed gathering.

  Guardsmen in abundance alertly patrol every feast

  tent and are visible beyond the tree fringe compound, covering the battlement of the city wall. Though the sun still shines above the watery horizon of blue hills, torches blaze on the distant walls and around the wedding dais. In an adjacent pavilion tent, fifty Celtic commanders and their ladies feast, wearing a spectrum of colors. A smaller canopy nearby shades the bishop and his clerics at their repast.

  On the platform, Ygrane and Uther sit in their dark

  wooden chairs: the queen's carved in dragons' fins and talons, the king's with cloven hooves and a unicorn's stylized mane. Even from across the sward, Merlinus

  recognizes their open joy, indefatigable even after a long day of rituals and audiences.

  Ygrane, resplendently dressed in scarlet bodice and

  white gwn patterned with complex Celtic ciphers of gold thread, radiates glamour. Uther, in an emerald tunic that hangs to his knees and a black leather cuirass embossed with his clan's dragon sigil, projects power. Both wear their slender golden crowns, and, the wizard spies as he nears, they are holding hands.

  At the sight of Merlinus, conversation dims in the

  tents of the Druids and the Celtic military command, and they look at him and murmur to each other. The

  ecclesiastics, too, watch the wizard closely. The

  disapproval in their tight stares is clearer to read than the Celts' muted reaction.

  In front of the platform, Merlinus bows formally, once to each of the royal pair, as he has seen others do. At the queen's beckoning, he climbs the five steps to the platform and sits on the audience bench to her right. Her luminosity saturates him, an extraordinary glow of sensuality, of womanly selfhood, warmer than possession.

  This is something he recognizes well—the feminine

  energy that first drew him into the horror of the void, then pulled him out of his mad rage into the comfort of his mother's womb, and which finally has led him here, through the legend of his own striving, to her side.

  "What a glory you've accomplished, Myrddin," she honors him. "You have found my king."

  "And completed our kingdoms in bringing us

  together," the king adds. "After Ambrosius died, I died as well. So much of me belonged to him. You gave me a new name and a new destiny. And now—a queen. How can we

  reward your labors?"

  "The child you will bring into the world is my

  reward," he answers directly and with a smile of shared happiness.

  At the height of this exultation, a blaze of searing

  radiance sweeps past, close to the platform. The wizard slaps a hand to his eyes and sees bones within. An angel has dared a very close approach.

  Why? he dreads, sockets aching from the blinding light.

  "Myrddin?" The queen leans over and puts a

  concerned hand on his arm. "What do you see?"

  Merlinus tries to ignore what he has seen. "The

  world seems little changed by this wedding today, yet I know the age here begun will enter into the heart of the human dream and have renown in all—"

  Another rush of white-hot flame jars past, closer

  than the last, and this time Merlinus distinctly sees the comet tail tresses and fetal features of a staring angel.

  Alarm seizes him. His heartflow feels nothing.

  He stands up and tries to cast his brails farther into the world.

  Nothing.

  Then he understands. It is an understanding that he,

  as a demon, would never have forgotten, shivering in the void watching worlds burn and dim like sparks. As a man, enraptured by the dreaming world, it is easy to forget.

  The greatest frailty of mortals is their self-

  importance. They live far from the truth. And so it seems Lailoken has been a man too long and has forgotten that the greatest battles are not fought among mortals.

  Far down behind the world, in the blind depths that

  range from star to star, angels and demons continue to do battle in the tremulous convulsions of starfields and nebulae and the debris they enclose—worlds like this

  damp rock where small lives live and die. The war rages on. Blinded by his dim mortal eyes, he does not fully remember it. He does not fully remember that the battle in the void decides the destiny of worlds.

  "Merlinus—what is wrong?" the king presses, rising anxiously.

  Acting on instinct, Merlinus raises his staff and

  shouts barbarous words, commanding the demons present to show themselves. Abruptly, in a conflagration of

  staggering refulgence and writhing black ordure, they appear in the sky above the festive parkland: a black mass of lightning-faced war-clouds.

  Several angels sweep back and forth in response.

  Like glaring fireballs, they blaze in their struggle to hold back an advance of demons. At least three of Lailoken's former comrades have gathered to attack—Ojanzan,

  Bubelis, and Azael—though not Ethiops, the demon the wizard saw with his long sight. Where is Ethiops?

  "Myrddin, sit down," the queen speaks gently at his side.

  Her composure alarms him, for he can tell that no

  one, not even Ygrane with her sight, can see them. The wizard takes her hand and places it firmly on his staff so that she partakes of his vision.

  The horrid sight slams into her, and she falls to her knees.

  Uther rushes to her, and Merlinus begins chanting

  slaying songs in a vain attempt to drive back the demons.

  That is hopeless. How well he knows, those old intimates of his are beings far beyond any mortal imprecation.

  In a fright, Merlinus scans for where Morgeu and her

  soldiers might be. He sees them at the distant end of the compound, where the western sun fingers through the

  woods. There, Ethiops looms above the treetops. His

  jellyfish tendrils lash the ground, entangling a fighting swarm of glassy figures—the pale people.

  Squinting, Merlinus can make out a band of elf-folk

  striving vainly to hold back a jostling line of rearing horses mounted with hooded soldiers. Ethiops' whipping tentacles scatter Sid warriors, and Morgeu's horsemen charge.

  Frantically, Merlinus tries to alert the guards, but

  everyone's attention has fixed on his mad antics. Some believe he suffers a convulsive fit. Others think he brazenly curses the wedding. At his first wild shouts, the fiana posted around the dais have leaped onto the platform, and when the queen collapses, they hurry to her.

  Falon moves to draw his sword to strike down evil

  Myrddin, thinking the wizard has attacked Ygrane. Only Uther's warning shout holds the warrior's blow. Instead, Falon seizes Merlinus by the back of his robe and yanks him away from the queen.

  That may very well have saved the wizard's life, for

  in the next moment, Bubelis' monster shark and Ojanzan's flexing centipede collide in the sky with the angels. Before Merlinus' eyes, the demons instantly wrinkle to fuming cinders in the burning presence of the angels and skitter away across the sky, squealing in cataleptic pain.

  They have created a momentary opening in the

  angels' defense, and it is then that Azael comes slithering through.

  The demon lunges at where Lailoken has
been

  standing, next to Ygrane, determined to smash his old friend free of his mortal body. In a blort of screeches and shrieks, Azael strikes instead the platform close to the Stave of the Storm Tree and explodes into view of the

  entire startled gathering.

  The impact shatters the dais and flings the royal

  couple, the fiana, and Merlinus to the ground, toppling the entire stage headlong into the flickering shadow of Azael's twelve-foot-tall eel shape. The demon's slick genital face bulges open with an incinerating cry of fury and frustration, far louder than the evoked howls of terror from the acres of shocked witnesses.

  At this range, close enough for the bellowing

  presence of the demon to shake the meat on bones and for his choking, earth bowel stench to burn lungs, the wizard's barbarous curse has some effect. Lailoken howls death at his former comrade, and, with a hurt scream, Azael

  shrivels smaller. Yet even through his agony, the demon has the presence to lash out.

  Merlinus rolls aside, and Azael's slippery coils miss him and splat over the queen. Merlinus sits up to strike the demon with his staff, afraid to shout another curse for fear of harming Ygrane. Uther bravely and foolishly flings himself at the abomination. With a shrug, Azael brushes away the king, heaving him senseless to the ground.

  Merlinus jabs the demon with his staff, forcing fighting wrath through the weapon, and Azael recoils, tail slapping.

  A blow strikes the wizard's chest, knocking his staff from his grasp, and leaving him sprawled against the

  broken dais in a breathless daze. He remains alert enough to see that his attack has been effective. Ygrane falls free, and Azael shrinks even smaller, slithering away and

  gradually disappearing outside the range of the staff.

  Scarcely has Merlinus found his breath than a

  stampede of horses bursts through the throng, toppling tables and scattering people in its mad wake. Beyond the reach of his heart's brails, these hooded warriors had been waiting patiently in the distant woods, and now their attack appears seemingly out of nowhere, a troop of ghost-riders to which Merlinus can only respond by gawking in stunned alarm.

  Distracted by the horrific apparition of Azael, the

  guards had not seen the rapid approach of the horsemen from the far end of the compound, and now it is too late to sound an alarm. The invading cavalry charges full out among the assembled. Several of the king's bowmen have the presence of mind to fire their arrows before the attack sweeps over them, but they bring down only four of the onrushing enemy.