"Ygrane!" Uther bolts into the crypt and rushes to her through tendrils of incense.
The queen lifts her arms for him and smiles to show
she is all right. They embrace, stunned by the momentum of events, wordless with the physical dangers and
supernatural terrors that separated them and then brought them together in this ghastly place.
With the pale people watching in their firesnake
armor, nervously alert to the evil shadows from the skull-lamps playing over the gruesome idol, Uther gathers her up and carries her to the stairwell.
"Let me walk out into the light beside you," she says, and he lowers her to her feet.
Together, with the infernal steam of burned offerings twisting about them into faces of elvish laughter, they climb toward the sun.
*
Ygrane regards her hands, toughened from years of
riding with her fiana, and wishes her soul could grow calluses. The pain she feels for her daughter is dangerous.
It makes her forget her earlier lives, makes her feel that Morgeu is her only child in all her incarnations.
Sadness clogs her heart, and her chest hurts as she
sits on a boulder nested by chickweed stalks. Uther kneels to comfort her, and she gently asks him for a moment to herself.
Morgeu—she intones silently and closes her eyes,
wishing she had the magic to heal the deeper pain in her daughter that the demon used to possess the young
woman. That pain must be my fault, Ygrane believes. My
love has been too feeble. In her pride as queen, she has loved her people, her fiana, and her magic more than her daughter, the seed of Gorlois.
What love she finds in herself now for Morgeu
seems more evoked by fear for her child than warmth and caring. There has never been much shared spirit between them. The unicorn and the magic that flowed from her to Morgeu during those golden summers brought them close for a time. Now, the queen wishes mightily that she had never shared her magic with Morgeu, never shown her
daughter the greater world of spirits.
If she had left Morgeu to Gorlois, perhaps the
demons would not have been able to touch her and use
her so gruesomely.
Ygrane turns her back to Uther, so that he will not
see her tears. Morgeu must not be his concern, because what they must do together dare not be constrained by their personal fears and pain. Her horrible time in the presence of Ethiops convinces her of that. Evil grows stronger on fear and pain. And all she truly feels for Morgeu is fear for her daughter's life and sanity and the pain that there is in her heart where there should be love.
*
Finally, having seen all he can see and eager to
help, Merlinus decides to return to Avalon, to his body. Like a hawk hanging on a ring of wind, he circles above the evil cliff fort, and he spies far below the red spark that is Morgeu.
Robe billowing with the speed of her flight, she and
the last of her Y Mamau flee on horseback along a trace in the gray mountain forest. The king and the queen walk together down a switchback path in the opposite direction.
Merlinus assumes they will be safe and he can reclaim his own physical form so that he might rejoin them in
Maridunum. The sword Lightning awaits him—and the
unicorn.
As he glides above the remote high mountains in
the taut, ringing silence of the sun's long rays, his expectations ring hollow. He sees that the king and queen are alone in the wilderness, facing an arduous journey without the fiana, the cavalry, or the elk-king's soldiers for protection.
He searches for King Someone Knows the Truth.
Coal streaks of birds mark the horizon, and beyond them, he finds the green sunrise flash that is the elk-king. His troop of red-armored dragon-soldiers follow him west
through pink-feathered cirrus, so much atmospheric smoke
at this distance.
The wizard, wrung with weariness as he is, still does not feel secure leaving Ygrane and Uther alone in the mountains, even though there is nothing he can do in his present state to help them. Anxious for their safety, he descends through flamboyant strata of sunlight to a gravel stream in a birch grove, where they have paused to
freshen themselves.
"Do you know where we are?" Uther asks, untying the purple silk from his right shoulder and soaking it in the stream.
"Far from anywhere." Ygrane sighs and sits on a flat rock beside a bush dense with gooseberries. "The Y
Mamau no doubt are hiding, as well. And practicing their murderous worship."
Uther sits beside her and gently wipes the tear
stains from her cheeks. "I am sorry. Our wedding stained with blood..."
"Many good souls returned to the Greater World,"
the queen laments. She picks listlessly at the berry bush.
"What lies ahead for us do you think? More killings? More slaughter?"
"In the chapel, when we met as commoners, we
understood. We are carried by history."
"Let us not go back, Uther."
Uther lifts his head to stare at her inquisitively. "How can we not?"
"In these mountains, there are villages." Ygrane lifts her face toward the deep ravines where sunlight smokes.
"In one, I was born. There I knew my happiest years."
"Ygrane," he protests tenderly. "How can we? Our people will search for us—your fiana will never give up.
Even now your living fiana are in the underworld, seeking you."
The underworld—
The astonishment of his journey to the netherworld
continues to envelop him like a melodiously strange dream.
Since returning to the natural world, he has felt so much smaller, dwarfed by all that is unseen—and, in an almost-perpetual breathlessness, he prays for his men left behind in that darker realm.
By the summons of some majestic and benevolent
fatality—he wants to return there.
The flight of the dragon-magus remains only a
stunned memory, like an alcoholic illumination that fades with sobriety. But the experience of the elk-king's Elysian fields—that disturbs him with its vivid and lingering joy.
Ygrane faces him with a resigned smile. "You're
right, dear Uther. I know that we cannot run away from
ourselves. It is a lovely idea, though, isn't it?" She brushes the tousled hair from his eyes. "Think on it—we would live outside a village far from any fortress, on our own small farm. Perhaps you could teach me your faith."
"My faith?" Uther pulls his mind away from his starry thoughts of the underworld and gives a lopsided grin.
"What are you saying? You—queen of the Celts—a
Christian?" After what he has experienced in the presence of the elk-king, he feels constrained by his religion, like a man forced to stare at the world through a judas hole.
There is so much more than he had ever guessed in his most fanciful imaginings!
"Uther—do you have a friend named Miriam?"
Uther tries to understand. "No—"
"A spiritual friend, then," Ygrane presses, bringing her face nearer his golden eyes. "To whom you've prayed since you were a boy?"
"Miriam?" He looks at her directly, wonderingly.
"Miriam— that's the Hebrew name for Mary, the mother of Jesus. Yes, I've prayed to her since I first learned to pray."
"She came to me. In Morrigan's crypt. She said that she tried to give you the love your mother could not."
"She said?" His brows lift. "What are you telling me, Ygrane?"
"This is true," she insists. "She spoke and gave me her protection."
"You believe this?" he asks with a thin voice.
"Since I was a child, I have seen the otherworld clearly. And that has been the curse and blessing of my life."
With a frown, he tr
ies to comprehend again. "So, your visions have shown you that—that my faith is true?"
"All faith is true, Uther," she says gently, as to a child. "The truth of your faith I've never doubted. Only now do I see that it must be for me, as well—now that we are husband and wife."
Uther sits back and shakes his head. "It's too much for me—this day, or is it days? My brother's ghost—the elk-king—Wray Vitki—and our men still in the underworld—"
His voice grows quieter with suppressed fierceness. "Are you telling me you want to live as a Christian?"
"Yes, Uther. It surprises me no less. I want to
worship with you." She notes the uneasiness in his expression and misreads it. "Oh, I know this must seem a shock—intractable as I've been in the past. Perhaps I should have learned from Gorlois. A faithful Christian he was not—not as you are, Uther."
The king crosses his arms and pinches his lower lip,
pondering something deeply.
"Uther, am I mistaken?" She searches his face—
speaks again, more quickly, "Are you unhappy with what I've said? What I've seen? Perhaps it was the demon's vision, the demon's handiwork. But I think not."
He startles uneasily from his ruminations. "No, no. I believe what you experienced is real enough, Ygrane. In fact, I am sure of it. I know—" He struggles with himself. "I know, because I saw your god. I saw him—like I'm seeing you now. I stood next to him. I even talked with him. And the dragon-magus—Wray Vitki carried me up out of the
underworld to this very place. You saw the dragon?"
She nods matter-of-factly. "Of course. It carried you to me."
"Yes! The elk-king summoned it for me—the king of your Sid. My brother..." He stands up and his boots crunch over the gravel bank of the stream. "My brother was there, as well. We talked." He falls silent and looks away.
Ygrane follows him solemnly with her eyes. "A great honor has been granted you. Even I have not had the
privilege to visit the Greater World in my mortal form, you realize. Only in visions have I seen it."
"Ygrane—even a day ago, I would have thought it
mad to see what I've seen. And insupportable—every
religion true—"
"My lord, whatever the human heart conceives is
true," she says, watching him pace the water's edge. "The spirit world precedes us. The gods are the ones who
imagine us. We are the dream—they the dreamers."
Uther stalks restlessly along the silver hem of the
stream. "And our men? My guard and your fiana—where are these wanderers now? In a dream?"
"I suffer for them, too, my lord. I suffer for them, because I cannot help them. We must trust in the elk-king to release them." She lifts her face, her eyes more green, here in the leafy shadows. "We must trust in the spirit powers—as they trust in us here in our lesser world."
Uther scowls ponderingly. "It's just that ... the world of truth is so much vaster than what I was taught. Then, what is it we are to believe? What is the living truth of our lives?"
"Where the truth waits is right before our eyes,"
Ygrane says.
Uther stops walking and faces her, expectantly.
"The elk-king wants my soul."
"He'll not have it," Ygrane says, startled. "If we are to be a united couple, wed in body and soul, then I'll pray with you to the blessed virgin Miriam, and she shall bless us in time with a noble Christian soul to be our son and successor."
The space between Uther's eyes flexes with uncertainty. "It's not so easy," he mutters. "I ... it was indescribable down there, Ygrane. I was so happy
watching the souls dance in that beautiful forest, I very nearly agreed to give him my soul right then and there."
Ygrane grows still with listening, her face filled with all the melancholy of her young life.
Uther takes her hands and feels their coolness,
sees the pallor in her cheeks. "You need food—rest."
She places her hands on his shoulders and again
leans her forehead against his. "My husband—something wonderful—and terrible—is happening to us."
"Yes—" He shuts his eyes. "Wonderful and terrible."
He gently pushes her away and gathers a handful of
gooseberries. "You must eat. Here, this isn't much, but I'll go back up to the fort and see if I can find something. They must have some provisions up there."
She stays him with a hand to his cheek. "No need to return to that evil place, husband. The pale people won't let us starve. As a child, they taught me how to set withe snares, and with my first magic I learned how to call black hares—the only hares eaten by followers of the old ways, like my parents, as the brighter hares are sacred to the moon-goddess, you know."
Uther presents her a handful of the white berries.
"Then, at least eat these now. I'll gather some withes, and we'll build those snares. And a fire, too. We'll rest today before we journey."
A grim smile comes and goes on Ygrane's face. "In a way, I should be thanking my daughter for what she's done to us. Before she stole me away, you and I were but married in name. Now, through her trial, we are wedded in our souls as well."
*
All that day, the wraith of Merlinus lingers with them.
He fights valiantly against smiting exhaustion, staying awake to keep from falling back to Avalon and into his body. Some secret has to be disclosed, he feels, before he can depart. A secret whose very nature he does not know and will recognize only when he beholds it.
Sunlight filters like honey through the autumn
leaves, and the small fire that the pair build on the gravel bank fends October's damp wind. As she has predicted, Ygrane traps a black hare, which they skin and cook over the fire and eat with the season's last watery blackberries.
The horrors of the crypt gradually thin away as hours pass in each other's company, that long day in the golden
woodland.
"When we go back, nothing will change, of course,"
she says quietly after they have eaten. Her disheveled hair and torn gwn give her the wild appearance of a sprite more than a mortal human. "My Celts will never wholly trust your Britons, I'm afraid. I guarantee there will be strife among our own people, even as we unite together to stand off the barbarians."
"Nothing will change, perhaps—but is there an
alternative? Can we not go back to face it?" Uther smiles at the thought of defection, and for a moment Merlinus
believes that maybe he would do it—run away—and that
thought inspires panic in the wizard. All their work together lost. Another incentive for him to seize the unicorn and flee the planet, escape through a black sun to heaven...
"Has it occurred to you," he muses, "neither of us was born to the purple. What would happen if we just went back to what we knew as children?"
Ygrane kicks pensively at the corroded leaves on
the ground. "If we return as king and queen, we are sure to lose each other—if not to the war room then to the court functions, the emissaries, the battles—" She stops and confronts him in the honeyed, holy light of the forest.
"Uther, I am afraid."
Those words in his mind echo the fear he has heard
from his brother in the Otherworld, and even the ghost Merlinus can see his heart flinch. "It is right to be afraid, I think. Or we will lose each other. Even out here in the wilderness, we can't hide—not from our people, our
destinies. Not even our deaths."
Ygrane's wan complexion seems to pale even more.
"Why do you speak of death?"
Uther drops his gaze and notices at his boot-tip a
pale foxglove in full flare, like a small soul in a white mantle. "It overshadows me, Ygrane. I can't help it. The look my brother had—before he went over to ... to his eternal fate—it haunts me. I'd never seen him look like that in life—so afraid, so contrite. Death has humbled him
. It stains my thoughts."
"Don't think on it, I beg you, Uther. There's been too much death around us."
Uther regards her affectionately. "Then, I won't talk any more of it," he promises, raising their clasped hands to his mouth. "But do this for me—do not call me Uther. Not you."
Ygrane gives him a puzzled look.
"I've never liked it," he admits. "It's a barbarian name. Merlinus' idea, meant to frighten my enemies."
"When we get back, I'll call you Theo, then." She
brushes the sable locks from his eyes.
"So, shall we go back?" He puts his arm across her shoulders. "And where shall we live? Not in Londinium, please—that viper's nest of intrigues and treachery."
"And yet the Celtic forts are barely serviceable—-
just rundown old Roman houses and decaying military
barracks." Ygrane sighs. "Shameful as it is for me to admit, we Celts have done little to maintain the ancient forts. I suppose there is Tintagel. It is mine by prior rights. Gorlois tried to entice me there some years ago by giving its title to me."
"Too far away. If we must live anywhere as king and queen, better to establish our house closer to the lands we are defending.
"Then, not the City of the Legion," Ygrane moans. "It is a grim place—all black stone and ancient buildings."
"It is. We will have to build our own fortress—
something new to honor this unlikely and happy alliance."
Ygrane's countenance brightens at the thought. "A modern fortress—with no walls! Not a fort at all. A giant amulet. A city made from the magic in our hearts and the land itself—"
"We'll have to see about the walls—"
"We shall make it new," Ygrane enthuses. "We won't need walls. We will have the love our people."
Merlinus, battered with fatigue, leaves them thus,
glad and ambling through the litter of the woodland.
Meanwhile, the last dragonflies cut across the chill of the air, and the round, yellow light of the day rolls away cold and small into the wide mouth of sunset.
*
As twilight stretches out, so does Merlinus. His
senses extend into the gloaming, alert for danger, hoping for the return of the Sid and their elk-king. The wizard detects no danger. Ravens flap overhead, the first tatters of arriving night. Small faerie lights wink low over the rooty earth and glint among moss-hung boughs of trees fallen into a black pond.
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