"But I am afraid, Dun Mane," he confesses. "I don't know what I am doing."
"Fear not, noble king." The Druid smiles warmly.
"You are bringing a large portion of the Celtic soul up from the dark underground and into the light of the waking world, of history. I promise you, the soul that you father by your sacrifice will shine across the centuries."
"And my soul?" The king's golden eyes narrow.
"What will become of my soul in the care of the elk-king?"
The Druid's beneficent and hopeful smile only
deepens. "Uther Pendragon, you are a true Christian. You possess the All Heal of Yesu in your soul. Thus, you can go into the underworld and come back unscathed. Look at you—" He sits back with admiration. "You have been inside
the hollow hills and have spoken with the god of the pale people and you are whole, no madder than you were
before you married our haunted people! Ha! Your faith protects you."
"If so, Dun Mane, then I would do well to trust in God for the birth of my son. Why barter my soul with the elk-king?"
The Druid pulls backward as though a wind gusts
through his skull. "You would spurn the soul of our greatest warrior?" His eyes hood with drowsy astonishment. "You must drink of the Raven Spring. You gave your word. A king to a god."
"No word was given, Dun Mane."
An arid expression covers the Druid's stunned
disappointment. "If you do not drink from the Raven Spring, Ygrane will mother yet another Morgeu. And you will prove yourself no better than a petty warlord."
Uther looks mild in the face of the Druid's curse. He is actually glad for all that Dun Mane has told him of their shared faith, and he is particularly relieved that his destiny forbids him to live and die as other men. For what the king has feared most about his transaction with the Celt god is that he wants to return to the happy netherwoods. With his eyes closed, he sometimes can hear the melodious way
the wind murmurs through the treetops there, like water or the sweep of rain, with its fragrant musk.
"Thank you for your sincere counsel, Dun Mane."
The king stands, looking commonplace and satisfied. "I will remember your wisdom."
Before the Druid can rise to bid proper farewell, the king departs the sanctum and disappears in the dark
corridor, as though he is no more than shadow.
*
While the king confronts Dun Mane, the queen
meets with Riochatus in his apartments overlooking the skewed lanes and alleys of Maridunum. She has sought
him out to ask about Miriam, the mother of Yesu. Her vision of the Blessed Mother lingers soulfully in her memory.
The bishop, in red robes and pontifical headgear,
sits in his ecclesiastic chair, the curve-limbed cathedra, transported with him from Londinium. A brown-robed cleric locates appropriate passages in the Bible that perches with spread wings on a reading tripod before the Church father.
Riochatus pontificates at length about the sacred
conception, the virgin birth, and the mystery of her
assumption into heaven. Nothing he says reminds Ygrane
of the dark Mediterranean woman with the Scythian brow and vulnerable gazelle eyes, whose voluptuous serenity freed her from the Dark Dweller.
When the bishop concludes, he asks her to pray
with him, and she kneels at the window while he intones liturgical petitions from his chair. His droning words disappear out the window.
When silent Ygrane prays, her shut face draws the
darkness behind her lids into an earnest plea that leaves a cold spot in her soul, where it breaks through to the Greater World: A dying people call on you, Mother of God.
You, who gave your son to death and saw him rise, save us. Our soul already passes through the portal of sunset into the underworld of vanished peoples. Only your son, Yesu, can save us from the darkness. Send his magic to us, and we will carry your light into the ages.
The gasps of the bishop and the cleric open her
eyes. An angel emerges from a sky of smoky quartz. It hovers above the thatched roofs like a tangle of stars. Its rays stitch a human specter. The trembling of its wings stirs music in their mute blood.
And then, it is gone.
The cleric prostrates himself, and the bishop falls
trembling to his knees. Eyes hot with tears, he shouts,
"Blessed mother of mercy! My prayer has been answered.
Our savior is received by the Celts!"
He turns his fervid stare on the queen. "Do you
accept Jesus as your savior, Ygrane, queen of the Celts?"
The queen sighs listlessly and rises. "You
understand nothing, Riochatus." She turns and leaves so abruptly, the bishop's gaunt face still shines beatifically ardent and happy when the draperies close after her.
*
The star stone falls to Earth beneath a trident of
lightning and a clamor of thunder.
The unicorn flashes light-footed through the brambly
ravines to near where it has crashed in the river gorge country of the Dobuni. Startled deer and elf-bolts of birds shoot past, escaping the noise. Among a slum of
blackthorn and asters high on a mount known as
Caliburnus, the rock squats as though it has been here since time before memory.
But no—coming closer, Merlinus can see that it is
not as before. The stone's lobes have broken apart, split down its middle like a pecan. One lobe lies impacted in the silty bank of the brook at the base of the mount, only a corner of it visible. The other half lies atop the mount,
rooted like a molar. The sword stands erect, the blade still caught in the fissure where it has been jammed.
The wizard's steed pauses on the mossy riprap of
the brook, and Merlinus dismounts to recover the sword Lightning. Encumbered by the sad discolorings of
separation from the unicorn, Merlinus clambers up the bank, using his staff to support himself.
With one hand, he grabs the exposed corner of the
impacted portion of the star stone, and as he shifts his weight to that arm, the stone slides horizontally on
bearings of gravel lubricated with mud. His purchase flees, and he logrolls down the bank into the chilly astonishment of the brook.
Merlinus sits bolt upright, splashing about for his hat and shaking water from hair and beard. The unicorn edges away. When he looks up to pick his path more carefully, surprise shakes him. The sword Lightning is gone! He
drops his staff and flies up the bank spry as a monkey.
The sword has not disappeared. It has simply fallen
and lies flat atop the stone, not visible from below. He lifts it easily, and the spilled light from the mirror-finished blade illuminates the interior of his skull, brightening a realization.
He leaves the sword on the stone, retreats down the
bank, and pulls the impacted half of the stone back to its original position. When he scrambles again to the top, the sword has annealed to the anvil rock, immovable.
Merlinus understands then that the star stone was
originally two separate rocks: a steel mortise and magnetic tenon locked together.
The impact has separated them. Now by moving the
impacted magnet, the steel gains or loses its strength to hold the sword.
Unsure yet what the significance of this must be for
the destiny that this sword and stone serve, the wizard nonetheless knows that this can be no accident. It is magic. He would have to remain alert to discovering its purpose. With that determination, he pulls the bottom half of the star stone into the free position, climbs up, and hefts the sword Lightning.
Its chamfered blade reflects the fire colors of the
forest: orange squash flowers, red maple, bronze oak, yellow birch. Sword in hand, he skids down the
embankment, retr
ieves his staff and hat, mounts the
unicorn, and they are away again, lithe as the wind in the densely tangled byways of the wood.
Maridunum's vine-hung walls appear out of the
forest gloom, ruddy with the long light of the sun. Dawn or nightfall, Merlinus cannot be sure. The unicorn stops at the fringe of the forest cresting the parkland at the back of the
city walls, where the king and the queen have been married what seemed an age ago.
Merlinus does not want to dismount. He dreads the
sorrows to come. The unicorn tosses its head impatiently, and he knocks his knees against its sides, wanting to drive it forward, hoping Ygrane will see them and somehow hold the beast still for him. Then he could throw the sword to the ground and ride off into the sky, into heaven.
Ygrane does not come for him, and the unicorn
stamps the ground, its hooves hissing in the dead leaves like the broken fragments of a star. Merlinus dismounts. A stupefied melancholy tightens on him, and it is all he can do not to fall to the ground under that pall.
Glumly, with eggshell emptiness, he trudges forward
into the cider light of the open field. He glances back only once. Thistledown flies where, full of unfathomable love and madness, the unearthly steed has stood.
The back portal of the city wall opens, and a wedge
of fiana rush out, followed by three mounted bowmen swirling dregs of windblown leaves. Uther and Ygrane
appear at the gate, and when they recognize the wizard, the king stays the soldiers, and they fall into two flanking lines. Merlinus approaches with the sword Lightning held high, spiked with orange sunlight.
"Merlinus!" Uther greets. "It's been days, you realize! Where have you been?"
"To Avalon, lord—as the elf-king bade me." The wizard lowers the sword for him to see. Ygrane recognizes it at once.
"The Furor's sword!" she cries. "The barbarians cannot surpass this magic—the best of their own gods!"
Merlinus turns the sword about and raises it as a
cross-staff, presenting it to the king. "A gift of power from the Daoine Sid—and the Nine Queens of Avalon."
Uther examines the sword Lightning with a look of
awe. He wields the sword deftly and turns to face his soldiers. "Behold! A dragonslayer's sword in the hand of your king! With this, we will without fail repel the invaders—
we will drive all the northern hordes from our land!"
A ferocious cheer from the warriors leaps into the
crimson sky, and an answering call descends from the city ramparts, where the barracks have emptied to see the
return of the wizard.
Ygrane leans close and kisses Merlinus' cheek.
"You have done well, Myrddin, and just in time. The warlords of the Britons and the Celts refuse to cooperate.
Maybe now, Uther will be able to draw them together."
The king displays the sword Lightning to the
soldiers. Its reflectance fills their faces with hopeful
radiance and fateful glory.
*
Leaving behind her mother's Cymru and her father's
Britain, Morgeu travels north as far as she can go and still find a settlement to make her own. Beyond the crags of Hadrian's Wall and the turf ramparts of the Antonine
frontier, among the mist-strewn river gorges of the
highlands, she finds Roman ruins. A maze of broken
battlements and rubble imprint the grassy tableland above a rock-strewn current.
Four centuries ago, this was the legionary fortress of Inchtuthil, the iron fist that held east Caledonia for Rome.
Now it is a rocky field hazed with heather. The dozen Y
Mamau that Morgeu has gathered on her northward trek
pitch tents and set to work constructing timber roofs for the remaining stone bulwarks.
A Pictish settlement nearby moves off several nights
later when green spirit lights are seen bobbing out of the ruins and into the surrounding hill forests. Ethiops harrows with nightmares the local lake dwellers and the ax-marauders in their underground stone houses until the populace loses its carnal will to raid the newcome women.
The Picts stay well away from the haunted fortress of Morgeu, whom they call the Fey—the Doomed.
Before the rage of winter descends, several Y
Mamau return from Segontium with a rickety dray under whose loaves of peat they have hidden a large stone
statue of the black goddess, Morrigan.
The rapture dances begin again and the blood
sacrifices as well. This time, Morgeu is determined to use as much of her father's political wiles as her mother's legacy of sorcery to assault her enemies and make her place in the world.
What she does not realize is that her very will to
stand against this immeasurable frosty wood comes from Ethiops, who still yearns to liberate Lailoken from his organic bonds. His yearning has become all the more
intense since Bubelis and Ojanzan collided with the angels and shriveled to cinders above Maridunum. It will be
centuries before they recover from those burns, and while they drift helpless in their hurt through the numbing chill of space, he and Azael must somehow manage without them.
Lailoken used to be fond of killing gutsacks by
overindulging them in their hungers, and Ethiops has
decided to use that very ploy on the wizard himself. That is why he has inspired Morgeu to establish her own
settlement apart from her parents. With his help, she will
grow strong this winter on Morrigan's magic—strong enough to believe she is a sorceress in her own kingdom.
The Picts will revere her out of fear. Treaties shall be arranged, and she will serve as a powerful intermediary for the north tribes with the Celts of the south. She will have political power and magic. And when Lailoken's
ambitious indulgences expose him, she will be ready and in place to strike.
Often that winter, Morgeu is seen by Pictish scouts
wandering the silver gravel bars of the river, muttering incantations to herself. She talks to Morrigan about her destiny as queen of the Celts. They discuss the old ways, the blood feasts that make her moonbitch-warriors strong.
And they plot the vengeance of Gorlois and the destruction of Lailoken.
Pictish scouts and hunters disappear, fed by Ethiops
and the Y Mamau to the Drinker of Lives—the Dragon. The immense beast, attracted by the offerings, jets steam and boils mud in the fens near Inchtuthil. It speaks raspily through the tranced women of the cult, moaning to be fed Lailoken. Ethiops plans to feed it the unicorn as well, and, in Morrigan's voice, tells this to the sorceress.
Morgeu remembers fondly her golden summers with
the unicorn. They are among her few happy memories of her mother and yet are themselves tainted by sorrow.
When Ygrane stopped sending the unicorn, Morgeu railed crazily to discover she had no magic of her own, no power at all to summon the charmed creature, and no hopeful future as a woman.
She still grimaces to recall how the Roman families
spurned her because of her pagan mother. Fumes of
winter alder and oak color the river bluffs with the same foggy shades of her grief.
"All that has changed with you, my goddess," she says to the shadowed stream that holds together the dark souls of spruce and fir. "Morrigan, who lives in the black needles of the trees. Morrigan of the winter night, fill this vessel with your magic."
At her feet, the stream has carved the ice into the
sinuous shapes of drowned hair, and she expects to see some sign here from her goddess.
Neither the faerie nor the unicorn comes to Morgeu
as they do at her mother's summons. When Morgeu
invokes Morrigan, Ethiops must conjure a presence. The demon answers her with soft-mindedness, blurring her with delusions of higher purp
ose. He shows her the shoddy
lean-to shacks her Y Mamau have hewn together among
the ruins of Inchtuthil and presents them as a palace: not a Roman fortress but an open-aired mansio, a temple sacred
to Morrigan with walls of magic instead of stone. From here, she will rule danger and madness.
Most seductive of all for her is that she will possess a kingdom that is neither her mother's nor her father's but her own. It will be a Roman-Celtic kingdom born more
intimately of her than inherited by any child of the flesh—
for she will bring it forth out of her own soul, accomplishing what none among the royals has dared in thirty
generations: She will continue to live immersed in the archaic bloodlust of Morrigan. And she will do this as a Roman-Celt, a sorceress of the most ancient order in the guise of a modern noblewoman—Morgeu the Fey.
*
For the unicorn, the hours are clouds. Beyond the
vapor limit of the sky, above the festering heat of the Dragon, space opens into the wide fields of the sun. Time means something larger there, where horizons are infinite.
Day and night, seasons, and all the puny strictures of life on the sphere of a Dragon's hide vanish.
The unicorn wants to go back, to the music of its
friends, to the flow of the herd. It is ready to abandon the Earth and snap the tether that binds it to the witch-queen.
Ygrane has found her mate and has withdrawn to create a child. Now is the time for the unicorn to depart—now, before the queen gives the Dark Dweller power to ride it again. The solar beast is still weary from carrying the star stone from Avalon.
Only its undelivered promise holds it from vertical
flight. The Fire Lords have not released it. Neither have they forbidden its departure. It moves through gloomy trees and tattered hangings of hemlock and wild grape. At a fissure in the earth red as a wound with autumn sumac, it knows well enough to stop. Mist seeps from the crevasse and hovers midlevel among the tree trunks in a soft
morning haze.
The unicorn scrapes its horn, sharpening its length.
The shavings it deposits melt into the earth, a final tribute to the Dragon before shooting free of the Earth. An
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