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by A. A. Attanasio

  No elf-folk come through the doorway between the

  worlds, which disappoints him. Try as he might to obey his exhaustion and return to his own flesh, he keeps circling back here to Uther and Ygrane. He needs to be sure that the royal couple is protected.

  That, he believes, is the secret revelation he seeks: a glimpse of an angel, the arrival of the fiana or the king's men. He perceives no threat in the vicinity, no inkling of Morgeu or beastly danger—nevertheless he finds no allies,

  either, and he hesitates to leave them alone.

  The wizard drifts aimlessly through cabbages and

  bracken under the red fur of dusk. As ever, he seems the center of the universe, and, for the first time since the very beginning of time, this thought strikes him as strange.

  Why is it that fate should lead each of us to such different ends, though we are all made of the same stuff?

  So many paths back to Her, and so much pain in the returning.

  After searching the perimeter with his brails, he

  circles back to the jumping shadows of the campfire and finds, to his great interest, the king and queen talking about him.

  "The elk-king sent Merlinus away on the unicorn,"

  Uther is saying as he grills a small trout in the open flames.

  "He rode to Avalon, an island in the western sea."

  "A place I know well," Ygrane says with hushed breath. She looks up with luminous eyes from her husking of chestnuts and hazelnuts. "Yes, it would be the Nine Queens who live there. You have not heard of them, then?"

  Uther shakes his head, and Ygrane tells him the

  ancient story, as Merlinus himself learned it. Moths spin through the fish smoke in blurs of light as she informs him of the sacrifice of the Winter King.

  When she finishes, Uther looks incredulous. "They murdered their kings?"

  "For thousands of years, that was the custom,"

  Ygrane affirms.

  "And the kings cooperated?"

  The queen tosses a handful of nut casings on the

  fire. "Is that really any different than your Jesus? He follows in the same tradition, you must know."

  "He perished for our sins—to save our souls," Uther corrects. "He was a carpenter, not a king."

  "He was king of the Jews, was he not?"

  "That's how the Romans mocked him."

  "But he was, in truth, the Messiah—the Anointed

  One—and thus the spiritual king of his people, the true king. Yes?"

  "I suppose. But he was never married to a queen."

  "Was he not?" Ygrane arranges the nuts on the hot rocks ringing the fire. "You say he perished to save the soul. And is the soul not a woman?"

  "Is it?"

  Ygrane cast a smiling scowl at him. "And you call yourself a man of knowledge. Read your Plotinus again, dear Theo—and your Aristophanes. They will tell you. The spirit is a man, and the soul a woman. My Druids have taught the same tradition from the first. So, you see, Jesus

  perished for the sake of the soul, the queen of his people.

  He lived and died in the ancient manner of the sacrificing queens."

  Uther thinks this over skeptically as he places the

  cooked fish atop a long peel of birch bark. "You sound like erudite Merlinus, quoting the philosophers. It was he who taught me that the Neoplatonists believe the higher mind, Nous, is male, and that matter, Hyle, female. And I did, in truth, learn from the Church that Christ, the Logos, the Word, is male, and that the soul he saves is female." He accedes with a gracious nod and places the fish between them. "You're going to make a very thoughtful Christian, Ygrane. The Church elders may find your insights more than a little disturbing."

  "So it is with the Druids. They know what they know, and the understanding that has been passed down is not to be disturbed. I will tell you a secret." As she uses a hazel stick to turn the nuts in the fire, she reveals, "The Druids are of the same patriarchal heritage as the desert tribe who birthed your savior."

  Uther pulls in his chin. "The Hebrews?"

  "In the old time," Ygrane goes on, "when the age of the queens was ending, when our people were spread

  across Europe all the way to the southern deserts, the Druids took over the holy role of the priestesses, and the sacrifice of the kings ended. Hu Gadarn Hyscion—Hu the Mighty, who led our people to Britain—Mighty Hu was a descendant of Abraham. So I have heard from Tall Silver, the chief Druid himself, discussing with my teacher, the crone Raglaw. Druidic altars are made of unhewn stone, a practice found in the holy book of the Hebrew's exodus from ancient Egypt. Chapter twenty, verse twenty-five, 'If thou would make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone.'"

  Uther laughs at her surprising knowledge. "You've memorized that?"

  Her startling eyes gleam.

  "You want me to believe your Druids are Jews?"

  "I ask you to believe this: that they entered the age of kings with the same faith," the queen says. "That they share a faith in the immortality of the soul and its passage from life to life. That is one of the Hebrews' secret teachings— gilgul I believe they call it. The Greeks believed it, too. And the magnificent empires to the east, also.

  Though we worship the Creator in all of creation, as sun, stars, trees, and rocks, we believe God's name is an

  indecipherable mystery."

  A deep happiness infiltrates his heart to hear her

  speak of these sacred things.

  "There's more. Listen to this, Theo. There are three desert prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah—who

  refer to the coming messiah as 'the Branch.' The Druids teach us, as well, that our deliverer is the Branch—the All Heal of the mistletoe, the golden parasitic plant that grows on the rare branch of the oak."

  "Then our faiths are not so far apart after all," Uther marvels, his careworn face young again in the flame-stitched light. He affectionately separates the most

  succulent flakes of the trout for her.

  Ygrane accepts his offering with a quiet look and

  holds his fire-bright stare while she confides a tribal secret.

  "Druids revere the cross. When they find the Branch, they mark the tree with a cross—and they carve the Branch with the name All Heal, which in my language is Yesu!'

  Uther claps his hands, and the echoes come back

  accompanied by the goblin cries of a raven.

  Ygrane reflects his enthusiasm with a calm, sisterly

  charm. "We are one people, the people of this Earth. The time of the queens is over. The kings rule the world now, and they share a faith across nations. They believe what they will believe. Yet, that does not change the truth of things, does it?"

  "The truth—" He shivers inside. "Nine Queens wait on Avalon. Is that what you mean?"

  "Yes. They were on Avalon long before Abraham.

  And they were there long before Babylon, which taught Abraham what he knew. And long before Egypt. And long before any kingdom. The queens ruled the people for more millennia than most people today believe the world has existed. And all this time, the Nine Queens have been gathering to sit on Avalon witnessing by magic sight the brutalities of our race. By forging compassion in their own matriarchal souls, by changing themselves, they change all of us."

  "The age of the queens is over," Uther says pensively.

  "Long over."

  "Then why are they still there?"

  "They wait for the Annwn—the angels—to replace them. With kings."

  The fire underlighting Uther's young face boldly

  reveals his wide-eyed apprehension. "Am I to be the first?

  Is that why we have come together?"

  "No, Theo." She takes his hand. "I've seen nothing of that in my sight."

  A chilled numbness fringes his heart. He no longer

  understands what his life reveals. Since marrying this pagan queen descended of the Hebrews, his waking world

  has become as a dream: Ordinary grief a
nd hope dwindle in him now that he has embraced his brother's ghost in the underworld, ransomed his soul to an animal god, and

  ridden out of hell on the back of the dragonish Satan of his nightmares.

  He is afraid for what he has done and what he has

  seen. And he remembers Dun Mane warning that men lose their minds in the hollow hills.

  Ygrane gingerly plucks the hazelnuts from the fire

  rocks and places them artfully around the fish. She savors the sweet and acrid scent of the cooking smoke and, on a smooth peel of bark, prepares a portion of the nut-peppered fish for him.

  Watching her soothes the dread in him. She

  appears so at ease with these strange truths, he feels safe with her. He gets up and retrieves the plaited grass satchel filled with berries from the stream where they have been set to chill.

  "Enough of all this. My mind reels to think on it anymore. Our hands are full with the work of our kingdom.

  We must get our men back from the Sid. We need them for our labors in this life. All that remains—the Nine Queens, the elk-king, angels and demons—" He grimaces with exaggerated amazement at the profusion of fateful powers surrounding them and pulls a smile from Ygrane. "All else we'll leave to God."

  The king and queen sit together in the warm aura of

  the fire and share a prayer over their simple repast: "We thank you again, Lord God," Uther begins, "for delivering us this day from those who would harm us—and we thank you for restoring us to each other, we two that you have joined to unite the peoples of this land against their enemies."

  "Let God be praised in the beginning and the end,"

  Ygrane concludes. "May the Creator of heaven and earth grant us a portion of mercy."

  *

  Merlinus relents to his sleepiness. But instead of

  sifting gently back to his physical body in Avalon, his wraith whips violently away. The wizard knows that unless he slows down, the future will unscroll before him. He does not want to endure another vision, not with his fatigue-wracked mind.

  Struggling to brake his flight feels like swimming

  upstream in a surging, muscular river. He is too weary. He pulls away and finds himself with Ygrane and Uther once more.

  Their food sits cold and untouched beside them, where they lie naked in the fireglow, their bodies the color of deer or of the hills at sunset. Merlinus does not want to see this. Plunging and pulling, they move with the rhythms of the fire, and even though the wizard suffers to invade the intimacy of their moment together and has no will to watch, he cannot look away without sliding away, back toward Avalon. He clings to them, as they cling to each other—

  Fingers twine in hair, legs twine, and rapt faces in

  the fire's satin glow disclose exquisite, mysterious feelings that Merlinus cringes to confront for fear of polluting with his demonic presence. He softens his gaze to the aura that encloses their bodies. A sun rises. Not white and blinding as an angel, cooler, a diamond light refracting the fire of their cresting passion.

  Merlinus lets go. He cannot bear to see any more. It

  is too hurtfully remindful of the evil intimacies he once worked as an incubus. He lets go and falls away, back toward Avalon and the future.

  And as he falls, the white sun that is the joined

  body-lights of the king and queen tightens to a star among the packed stars of the night.

  Far away from Merlinus, Uther and Ygrane blaze.

  Empty of forethought and care, full of the instinct and presence of wild things, they plunge burning with love and its sun into the nameless night.

  *

  The immediate future snaps open as Merlinus

  retreats from the royal couple. And he beholds them in the firelight eating with their fingers, chatting further about what lies ahead for them—the trek through the woods to the nearest Roman road and eventually back to Maridunum,

  where King Someone Knows the Truth has instructed the wizard to meet them.

  "Why does the elk-king send Merlinus to Avalon?"

  the queen asks.

  "To get a sword—a sword the angels have stolen

  from a dwarf, I think."

  "The sword Lightning."

  "You know of it."

  Ygrane stops eating. "I know it was Brokk who made the sword Lightning for the Furor long ago. It is a weapon of legend. Only a truly lofty soul may wield it without suffering incurable harm."

  "That will not be me, then, if that's the case—"

  Uther's hands fumble with his food. "I know how I came to

  be king. It was Merlinus and Ambrosius who made me what I am. No merit of mine."

  "Fate—and magic."

  Uther gives her a complicit look. "Fate and magic indeed." A sardonic laugh rises in him at the cold recollection of his journey to the underworld. "When I saw the souls of the dead, Ygrane, I saw them dancing and laughing. I heard the music that moves them." His expression softens. "It's much bigger—so much bigger than anything I could ever have imagined."

  "Yes." She holds his expression of luminous inner life with a knowing stare. "The truth is."

  "Can it win triumph for our people against the

  invaders?"

  "Ah, but they have their magic, too." Ygrane gives a hapless smile. "Magic is only half of it. The rest is fate."

  "God's will." He stares at her with unguarded admiration, fixing in his mind why he feels so triumphant near her: She is vulnerable without being plaintive. "You have already accepted our fate together, whatever befalls us."

  "Have I?" In the firelight, her carved features lend her an air of knowing she does not feel.

  "You called me to you," he says. "You knew I was in the world, even before you met me. From the first, you embraced your destiny as a queen. That's why you left these hills, why you married Gorlois. You know you're destined to birth a ruler."

  "Am I?" she asks, barely audible.

  "Yes, Ygrane. I, who know nothing of fate, know

  this." His voice fills with emotion, mixed fear and hope.

  "Your son—our son—will be a lofty soul, the one who is destined to become worthy of the sacred sword."

  Her watchful face looks radiant with serenity. She

  moves to say something, and Uther stays her lips with his fingers. He leans forward on his knees and touches her brow with his. Her lips are dry and warm.

  When they kiss, faces silhouetted in the dark, the

  firelight threading like the rays of a fierce star between their brows, Merlinus retreats from this vision.

  They both expand in each other's embrace,

  enlarging with life, becoming visibly greater together, visibly stronger the more completely they entangle. And the wizard thinks of all the separate stars overhead, all the separate beings and things, each at the exact center of everywhere and nowhere—all yearning for the wholeness these two possess, this meaningful conjunction of destinies into one shared light in the darkness, a harmony of rapture and danger, of knowing and mystery, of fate and magic.

  *

  Time falls open. Like a mountain desert, the future

  lies before Merlinus in a huge vista, colorless as shale.

  Whole slopes of time veer away on all sides. The wizard laughs uncontrollably, seized by the giddy panorama of busy scenes.

  He sees battles mostly—barbarians in their strange

  rags of leather and battered armor and Uther's lethal, black-clad horsemen sweeping over hillsides.

  Much closer, on the hummocky field before him,

  Merlinus spots the unicorn and the soldiers it has led out of the Otherworld. Emerging from a nook of hills, the fiana and cavalrymen stagger about, salt-stained beards and harrowed faces sharpened from their ordeal in the eternal wasteland.

  Wearily, they tramp along a gravel streambed until

  they come upon Ygrane and Uther asleep in each other's arms under a blanket of leaves. Farther downhill, they are all riding together through the stark
forest. Farther yet, they traipse along a Roman road—and there is Maridunum with its vine-scrawled brown walls.

  Merlinus peers toward the horizon, into a sky like

  fractured quartz. A mirage flutters before him, an

  enchanted landscape of seething falls and smoky

  mountaintops under the silver lips of the moon.

  Close by, through secret paths in the velvety sedge,

  sight draws past ranks of attentive basilisks and cowled wyverns. A ribbon sprawl of river opens to the sea, and a barge drifts languorously on the shining estuary. Nine proud queens stand erect at the prow, and a dead king lies upon the thwarts, cold and blue.

  Uther? The wizard cannot see who it is.

  On the near bank, another battle rages, the grass

  slick with blood, the sky full of rattling arrows—and, heartsick, Merlinus recognizes the mattocks and fire-axes of the barbarians flashing through blinding dust and

  vapors. Like a tongue of flame, the wind sock of Uther's red dragon flies among black banners of battle-smoke.

  The wizard pulls his gaze away. Closer, on a bluff of gray grass switching in a ghostly wind, he fixes on stubby knobs of granite and a round section of oak, a great wheel cut from a behemoth tree. The wheel tilts and falls, landing on the granite knobs. And in that instant, it is no longer a wheel but a table—an immense round table. And at its

  center stands a silver cup inlaid with gold and meshed in starlight.

  An angel comes out of the gorge, a living fire with

  blinding eyes, and Merlinus is back in his body, back in Avalon, sitting cross-legged on the packed earth, staring up into a javelin of sunlight.

  Quickly, he turns his face away, and a black sun

  imprints his vision. The Nine Queens, sitting on their block-cut thrones and branded with the retinal afterimage,

  observe him through their black veils.

  "What did you see?" Rna asks in a fatigued voice, leaning slightly forward.

  Merlinus opens his mouth to speak, but exhaustion

  packs his chest. He mutters a spell of wakefulness, and weariness departs, leaving him with stainless clarity. He begins to tell the Nine Queens about Uther's courageous rescue of Ygrane and the radiance of love he witnessed between them.