"No, Myrddin." Old, withered Rna shakes her proud head. "What did you see of times to come?"
"Little," Merlinus reports, rubbing his eyes. "An angel interrupted me, and I still can't see you clearly. How long was I staring into the sun?"
"Did you witness the birth?" The old one's voice persists, hollow as an echo. "Will there be a birth?"
"I don't know."
"Then, did you see yourself? Will you go on from here after Uther?"
Merlinus shrugs, stands his staff on end, and uses
both hands to get stiffly to his feet. His body feels ponderously heavy despite his spell of wakefulness, and he requires both arms and legs to hold himself upright.
"I saw you, all nine of you, in a barge on a river entering the sea. A dead king lay at your feet."
The black veil of the eldest queen flutters with an
exasperated sigh as she sits back. "That is already well-known, Myrddin. Did you see anything else?"
"Battles mostly."
"What about the sword Lightning and the star stone?
Surely, you saw them?"
"No." Merlinus thinks a moment. "Just a large, round table cut from an oak. I think it was a table. With an elegant goblet of precious metals at its center. But neither chairs nor people."
Rna leans forward again, more sharply this time, her
elbows winging out as her hands clutch the armrests. "You saw the Graal?"
"I saw a silver goblet with inlays of gold thread fine as human hair—and an extraordinary luminance shone
from it."
" That is the Graal, Myrddin." The veiled queen sounds excited, in her impassive, magisterial way. "The
Fire Lords have crafted it to receive their power, which they send down from the sky."
"An antenna." Merlinus gnaws a corner of his mustache. "The angels must use it as a means to focus energy. Electricity—" He gropes with the language to name the force he knew as a demon. Electricus—amber friction.
"There is an enormous electrical potential between the Earth and the upper atmosphere—"
A stir passes through the other eight queens as they
turn in their seats to murmur at one another. Still, the falcon stare of the eldest never budges from Merlmus.
"You must go now, Myrddin. Plant the star stone where the unicorn directs. Deliver the sword Lightning to King Uther.
When you build the oaken table of your vision, the Graal will be given."
Before the wizard can respond, space shivers.
Merlinus thinks at first it is his scorched vision and blinks.
The air swims with giant protozoa, and the contours of the round chamber warp and wobble with the passage of the large lenses of their bodies.
Images smear and break apart as if seen in rippled
water. And when his vision calms and smooths out, the circular hall and the Nine Queens are gone.
Merlinus stands in a circle of stones shining with
fire-colored lichens. Nine trees stir in the sea-scented wind: birch, rowan, alder, willow, ash, hawthorn, oak, holly, and hazel. Energy pours into him out of the cold that flows through these totem trees. And radiant air, full of sea salt and the mineral breath of the mountains, encloses him.
The wizard does not linger in that place. The Nine
Queens have returned him to himself for a purpose. With legs full of limber strength, he exits the circle and practically runs back through the apple woods to the black pond.
There the unicorn stands, at water's edge, drinking
from the floating world in a tremulous mirror surface. Its hide flickers with bounteous power. It looks up at his approach and waits.
His hurried pace slows at the sight of the beautiful
creature, because he remembers too well the heavenly
peace he knows at its touch—and the damnation that
always follows its departure.
Skirting the unicorn, Merlinus walks the perimeter of the small lake and approaches the star stone and the
sword stuck in its cleft. Physically, he cannot budge the rock. With his earth-rooted strength and a vigorous chant, he gets it to bobble a few inches off the ground. He steers it to where the unicorn watches him with long eyes, and he mounts the beast.
As before, his brain buds with the fragrant blossoms of paradise, and heaven's grace appears to shine through everything. His might multiplied, and with an insistent touch of his staff, the star stone rises into the air. After some awkward weaving and dipping, the stone flies ahead as they gallop east.
An oceanic wind looms up at the rocky coast, and
the unicorn charges over the faceted surface of the sea, scattering spindrift behind in tattered pennants. Wave crests stream on all sides, and the wizard and his steed rush headlong toward the blue heather bluffs of the distant, ordinary world.
*
Rain fog greets the fiana and cavalry as they emerge from the spectral darkness of the underworld.
Initially, the weary soldiers believe that this gray void is another obstacle to their escape. The cloven hoofprints that they have been following end in mud draggled with periwinkles and rhododendrons.
Falon slides off his mount, face upturned to the soft rain. Through pastels of fog, he discerns the ragged
silhouettes of fir trees and smells their resin. He begins to laugh with relief. The world's beauty hides in the mist as though it is a secret, and the other men only slowly begin to grasp it.
"Men!" Falon shouts through his giddiness. "We are home!"
Groans and hoarse shouts of "Blessed Cymru!"
jump from the staggered company as each and every one falls to the ground and embraces the fertile earth.
Eyes rigid with staring, the men crawl to their feet
and shamble through the fog toward the shadows of
colossal trees, where the day shines powdery blue. Like blind men, they grope with outstretched arms among the pharaonic pillars of trees, grateful to touch once again bark and pine needles and the bestowals of rain.
Atop the rise, the wanderers see that the fog sits
only in the cups of the valleys. The cerulean morning hurts their eyes. Intoxicated with dewfall and sunbeams, the mud-plastered men reel about jaunty as clowns. The
horses, too, revive in the canted light, and the autumn wind carries their whinnying songs aloft.
Falon alone retains enough composure to orient
himself. From a bough draped with red ivy, he scans the smoky hills falling away to the mountainous north and recognizes that they are within the forest of the Demetae.
Even with their worn-out horses, the riders can reach
Maridunum by tomorrow evening.
He gathers the men and leads them through the
morning mist to the gravel flats of a stream to wash
themselves and refresh their steeds.
There, they find the king and queen in each other's
embrace, asleep beneath a cover of leaves. The sight
gladdens them as much as the warm touch of the sun and familiar hillscapes of home, for now their mad crossing of the shadowland has not been in vain. With jubilant cries, they rouse the royal couple.
Happy astonishment sits up Uther and Ygrane in
their riverside bower, and all bleariness from their long night of lovemaking flies at the joyful sight of their men unharmed. In a mood of heartstrong celebration, a fire is built while several soldiers lurch through the woods
shooting at deer. No animals are hit by the woozy archers, but the fiana net numerous trout, and over this repast the stories are told.
The ride to Maridunum, under cloud cover ripped by
wild rays of sunlight, cleanses them of otherworldliness. At night, the rain stroking the hawthorn branches of their shelters soothes them into dreamless sleep, and they wake to a chill, gray dawn in the boggy lanes of the forest. By midmorning, they follow a rutted cart trail past crofts and apple garths so ordinary and remorselessly familiar that many o
f them at last feel sane enough to weep.
Falon cannot stop watching the queen. She looks
different to him, for he has never seen her happy before.
The darkness of the Otherworld has sharpened his gaze in this life, and he exults to notice the tiniest details of her elation: He sees a slight deepening of her dimples in her shared smiles and proud looks with the king, and he hears the hues of her soul in her voice when she speaks to him.
She is risen in love.
This seems a sacred boon to Falon, a blessing won
for all the people. Ygrane, from her first summons of him fifteen years ago, has always seemed preoccupied by her magic. Her trances and conversations with invisible beings give much of her to the unseen. Now, to Falon's strong eye, she appears wholly focused in this world.
Uther has changed her and is himself changed, from
the uncertain king in black who married the queen, to a Celtic hero, raider of the hollow hills, worthy consort to the witch-queen. Falon senses, at last, the magic that his moody, distracted queen has been building these many
years. The tidal history of empires creaks in this murky forest, rising among bare-blown trees, and swirling about this regal pair.
They ride together bareback on Falon's steed, with
the queen in the king's embrace, sharing the reins. This living emblem inspires the fiana and cavalry to ride diligently at their defensive stations, guarding what they have hard won. Falon shares a mount with one of the men who died in the under-region, while another of the
resurrected gallops swiftly ahead to alert the guard at Maridunum.
By the time the first hamlet appears tucked among
viridian pastures dotted with red cows, the adventures behind them seem more fabled than important. What lies ahead beckons—the alliance between Celts and Romans
and the necessary battles that will have to be won to unite their kingdom.
*
Dun Mane, in the green robe and white hooded
mantle of his supreme order, welcomes the king into his sanctum. The cubicle, though small and cluttered with bulky leather-bound folios piled atop a scrivener's table, has an arched ceiling that endows the space with quaint grandeur. A scented oil lamp chained overhead casts a sunset glow and a fragrance of soft apples.
This is the Druid's private cell, where he keeps
company with the old texts. Since the horrifying experience of the royal wedding, all those days that feel like weeks ago, he has sat here, deep in reflective prayer, poring over the most sacred of the writings: The Book of Green Fire and The Yellow Book of the Branch, written collections of the oral teachings from the earliest Druids. He seeks some understanding of the horrifying wonders he has beheld, and he believes he has found what he seeks among these venerable runes.
Both written sources record that: there will be signs and portents when the fiery names shall be heard again—
That was the passage he contemplated the moment the
victory horn sounded and Uther returned to Maridunum
with the queen. Now, having heard their stories, he
understands: the fiery names are the primal heroes, the great souls who put on the phantom shapes of flesh when the people need their undimmed warmth and power.
Dun Mane sees Uther Pendragon with this
understanding. Until the terror of the wedding, the supreme Druid had faith only in the political and military advantage of this renewed alliance with the Romans. Now that the king has returned from the hollow hills, now that Uther Pendragon himself speaks of facing the elk-king of the Daoine Sid and bartering souls with him, Dun Mane grasps something far larger in this union.
A spiritual unfoldment is taking place. Dun Mane is convinced of it. He reads it in the sacred texts of his people, and he hears it in the holy pronouncements of the king's faith, whose Anointed One will baptize with fire: I am come to send fire on the earth.
Dun Mane receives Uther with formal regality, in full ritual attire. The king's herald has delivered his request for a visitation unexpectedly and with barely enough time to don his robes of holy office.
Uther arrives bareheaded, dressed informally in a
blue tunic and velvet slippers. Care shadows his youthful face. He puts his hands on the Druid's shoulders and stops him from bowing. "Do not revere me or my station, Dun Mane," he says in a voice flat with honesty. "I have come to you as a man—a creature of our race. I need your
counsel."
They sit together at the bench of the scrivener's
table, and Dun Mane folds back his hood and exposes his long, drawn face burnished with silver whiskers. "You are here because you fear giving your soul to the elk-king."
A surprised smile jolts Uther before the solemn
weight of that truth closes his face again. "Yes, Dun Mane.
My promise weighs heavily. How did you know?"
"I have sat here with what you have told of your journey to the underworld," Dun Mane says in his low voice, "and I have felt your trouble. You are a Christian—
and a Celtic god demands your sacrifice."
Uther's face clouds. "I no longer understand the world."
A sad laugh drops from the Druid. "Nor do I, my lord.
For years as a Druid, no glamour, no marvels touched me.
I lived cunningly and opportunistically. My family's power protected and nourished me, and my personal influence grew. I lived the political life of the clans. I lived it so well that when the supreme Druid before me, the legendary Tall Silver, crossed to the Greater World, I was tapped to take his place." Another unhappy laugh falls out of him. "At that time, I thought that the stories of Tall Silver's magic were allegory—fables of illumination. I ignored the mysterious feelings of awe I felt in the queen's presence. I scoffed at the crone Raglaw, a primitive reminder of our people's aboriginal past. I thought myself enlightened—almost
Roman in my modernity. I thought I understood the world, too. I was wrong."
The king thumbs his shaven chin, confused. "How
can there be so many gods?"
"There is only one God," Dun Mane asserts. "The deity wears many faces—and not all human."
"I am a Christian and the elk-king pagan."
"My lord—we are one light of many colors. Listen."
He places an age-mottled hand on the maroon stack of
folios. "I have been studying these old texts again, sacred writings I once thought less important than clan treaties and border maps. I have looked at them in a new light since your wedding, my lord. Now I am convinced your
faith and mine are the same." A quiescent smile composes his bulky countenance. "I am convinced now that the Druids are a priestly caste descended from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem."
The Babylonians razed the Jewish temple in 586
B.C., in an age when the Celtic empire touched the holy lands. Solomonic priests and Druids shared then what they knew of the Fire Lords' magic. Uther remembers learning this, first from Merlinus, then Ygrane herself, and now her Druid. "You are Hebrews, then?"
"I believe that Druids and rabbis share a tradition and may very well have common ancestors, yes. We keep the same ancient traditions. I will elucidate them in close detail for you at your wish—for now, all you need know, my lord, is that the Anointed One, Yesu, is a Celtic savior prophesied by our seers since the age of Solomon's
Temple."
"He is the All Heal, symbolized in the mistletoe worshiped by your sages." Uther repeats what his wife has taught him. "But—Dun Mane—do you and the other Druids truly accept Jesus the Christ as the Son of God and your personal savior?"
"I cannot speak as yet for the other Druids," Dun Mane answers with shining candor, "but for myself, I am certain. Yesu is the new god of our modern age, destined to be the supreme deity of the Abiding North. I have not the sight, as does the queen, yet I can see plainly enough that God has fulfilled the ancient prophecy in Jesus and has come into the Lesser Worl
d and taken on the phantom of flesh as a man."
"And your god, Someone Knows the Truth—what of
him?" the king asks in a challenging tone. "He told me that the Christians steal souls from him."
Dun Mane's deep wrinkles darken pensively. "Gods are much diminished when they go into the earth, my lord.
They become smaller. More agile, too, perhaps—but far less powerful. They live too close to the Dragon, you see. It changes them. Makes them more like itself-—like your
ancestor—"
"Wray Vitki—yes." Light widens across Uther's face as he looks up at the oil lamp, half-expecting God to answer for the abominable wonder of the magus. "I swear by all that is holy, he has become a tired, old dragon. Were
it not for my boyhood dreams of him, I would not have known he had ever been a man."
"The same happens with the gods, my lord, only
more slowly, over ages." He pulls open a leather volume and gestures at the foliage of tangled loops and interlocked spirals in the glosses. "My people are obsessed with the Dragon. See it in the dragoncoils of our designs. Hear it in the plaintiveness of our music, which is the wistfulness of the Dragon's own dreamsongs. The spirit of our ancient people has been driven into the ground. But now, Yesu comes at last—the All Heal, resurrected from the dead by God. He will lead our people out of the underground,
because we are his people, descended directly from his vine. Do you understand, King Uther? The messiah has
come for us—in you."
Uther splays a hand across chest and shakes his
head. "Not in me, Dun Mane. I am but a man."
"Made king by God."
"By Merlinus—Myrddin—if truth is to be served."
"Myrddin is a demon won to the angels by God's
grace," Dun Mane asserts. "He did not choose you but was shown you by the prophetic sight of the crone Raglaw."
Uther demurs with bowed head. "Jesus is the
Messiah, not I."
"Your humility is dearly welcome, my lord." An avuncular smile graces Dun Mane's big face. "Riochatus would have us believe that he is Jesus himself. Yet he does not speak for our savior, only for Ravenna and the Roman Church. He is one of the Romans who gather at
their country estates to decide how Yesu will be understood by all others. No. Yesu lives in each man's soul who is open to healing salvation. You know that. That is why God has chosen you to be king—a Christian with a big enough soul to look into the elk face of Someone Knows the Truth and convert his best warrior to Yesu."
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