The Storm Tree
The Lawspeaker led Gorlois by his nose into an alcove furnished for a vitiki, a Saxon seer. There, among hangings of scalps and an array of skull cups, he selected a goat's horn and unstoppered a stench of dead flesh.
"What are you doing?" Gorlois managed to gasp when the Lawspeaker released his nose.
"Promoting you to the Storm Tree, Merlin," the aged counselor replied with a cackle. "There you may discuss virtue with the gods themselves if you wish. I've no ears for such talk. Go now!"
Before Gorlois could catch his breath and bring up a mighty enough laugh to open the gates of power in the wizard's body, the Lawspeaker jammed the open end of the goat's horn in his mouth and emptied its fetid contents.
The Roman tried to spew it out, but the old man clapped a hand over Gorlois mouth and grasped his nose. With a choking cry, the duke swallowed the evil elixir.
He fled his body. The rainbow bridge spanned before him, and he flew across its vibrant hues, rising from the ruddy glow of the blood-light behind his lids, through the yellow radiance of daylight, above the green forests and into the blue sky.
Terrified, he found himself among starry pinwheels and misty shreds of cometary vapors. A rapturous terrain extended before him under flagrant stars and a huge pocked moon: purple mountains and blue tree-roughs that descended toward meadows studded with lakes of golden stillness.
A giant strode toward him across the dells. His blue cape flowed translucent and furled as starsmoke in the sky above. At a glance, Gorlois recognized the wild, soot-streaked beard and eagle-hooked visage of the one-eyed god—traits made famous in fable and song—"The Furor!"
A dense fragrance of stormwind and lightning rolled from the giant god as he advanced, boar-skin boots carrying him across leagues with each step. Oddly, as he paced closer, he seemed to shrink. In moments, he stood an arm's length away, only a head taller than Gorlois, and spoke in a deep, enclosing voice, "We must talk."
A Sea Journey
To demonstrate to Marcus Dumnoni that Lord Lot and his Celtic warriors had been won to the King's Order, Lot sailed with Arthor from Cymru to Hartland in Marcus' domain. Lot had been reluctant to leave his gravid wife Morgeu alone in the north, and he brooded over her well-being. As they sailed, he clutched the lock of her red curls he wore on a rawhide thong about his left bicep.
"I can see that you love my sister," Arthor said to the aged chieftain at the ship's taffrail, watching the autumn-misted bluffs of Cymru drift away. "She has given you two fine sons." The king glanced at Gareth sitting on the binnacle box questioning the helmsman, who was showing Gawain how to handle the tiller.
That sight stirred a yearning in him for a real family, and he spoke a half-truth: the true half from his longing for genuine kinship—and the dark half from his shock that his own sister had impregnated herself by him for revenge. "I share your sadness that Morgeu chose not to join us. I would have liked to have met my mother with my sister at my side."
"Morgeu has little love for Ygrane since the queen forsook our ancient faith for the nailed god," Lot spoke absently, then caught himself and faced the king with a solemn expression. "Forgive me, sire. I am pledged by my fealty not to speak ill of your faith."
"You are forgiven—and more." The king placed a hand on the thick wrist of the chieftain. "I offer you my gratitude for your willingness to abide my faith."
"Our concerns with the afterworld must not confuse our thinking about this world—or we fall as easy prey to our shared enemies." Lot's leather face, both wide and lean, bore the cast of a true northman and his eyes a mean squint, yet a gleam of respect kindled there. "I care not if you worship the Fauni themselves who drove my people's gods underground, for you have proven yourself a worthy king at the Spiral Castle. I will tell you true and without shame, Arthor—had you abandoned Eufrasia, I would have called you a fraud to your face and pulled that pretty chaplet from your head. But what you did and how you did it, alone, taking jeopardy full upon yourself, that is the deed of a true warrior king."
A groan broke the conjoined stares of the old man and the youth. Bedevere gripped the rail with his one hand and leaned far out, pallid with seasickness.
"Tend to your aide," Lot said, returning his attention to the retreating headlands, "and leave me to my prayers for my homeland and my wife."
Striding across the swaying deck to where Bedevere rolled his eyeballs and gasped, the young king asked, "Have you no more tasty Saint Martin's wort to steady your stomach, wayfarer?"
"Do not jibe me, sire," Bedevere groaned. "My qualms are beyond herbal remedy."
"And you a world traveler!"
"A traveler by land, sire—by land..."
"What word of Merlin?" Arthor gripped Bedevere's swordbelt to keep him from toppling overboard. "Have all birds returned?"
"From all points, sire. No word of the wizard." Bedevere emptied his gorge into the churning sea below, gasped, spat, moaned, and muttered, "Merlin's fallen from the face of the Earth—and I'd as soon join him."
Rex Mundi
The dwarf Merlin scooped up handfuls of the ashes remaining of the black dog that the demon Azael had occupied. "Ah, now I thee why the Nine Queenth sent uth from Avalon to thith plathe. They wanted uth to meet with Athael."
The monkey Dagonet peeked out from the vault where he had dived to hide from the slaverous hinds. He climbed out and pranced nervously around the cinereous remnants of the demon dog.
"You want to know why the Queenth thent uth to meet Athael?" Merlin removed a ruby and sapphire from the Dragon's pelf in the pockets of his robes. "To work magic, Dagonet. Magic!"
Dagonet squawked anxiously.
"Be not afwaid." Merlin tilted his hat so that sunbeams basked the gems and ashes. "Thee. Nothing ith happening yet. I will explain what I'm about to do, and becauthe it ith dangerouth and will put all our liveth at wisk I will do nothing without your permithion. Agweed?"
Dagonet the monkey nodded his head nervously.
"The demon Athael ith not dead," Merlin explained. "He ith thimply thtunned—and in thith ash for now. By combining in my magic hat hith ash with the Dragon'th wubies and thapphireth, I can athemble Wecth Mundi—King of the World—Pwince of Darkneth! A demon in phythical form! But not an evil demon. No. A demon who will obey uth. In twuth, a demon who will be uth. With that power, we can hunt down Gorlois, weetweeve my body, and wethtore you and Lord Monkey to your pwoper bodieth. Ith that good?"
Dagonet rocked his head uncertainly.
"Do you want to thtay a monkey?" Merlin shook the hat, and the gems clinked with a musical sound. "All I need ith a tuft of monkey fur and a lock of thith hair. Once combined—poof! We will become Wecth Mundi." The wizard contemplatively pinched his chin between thumb and forefinger, then added, "Of courth, it ith very dangerouth. It ith your body and Lord Monkey'th combined that we shall occupy. If an enemy killth uth, you and Monkey will die, Dagonet. Will you take that withk?"
Monkey Dagonet stood up tall, put his fist to his heart like an old Roman, and nodded.
"Good! Then let uth work magic" With a sharp edge of rock, Merlin cut strands of monkey fur and a curl of red hair from his head, twined the two together, and held them to the sun. He met the monkey's anxious eyes, winked, and dropped the braided lock into the hat.
A flash of blue fire outshone the sun for a blinding interval, and in that glare, silhouettes of dwarf and monkey fused and elongated, wobbled and stretched like firecast shadows. When the magical radiance dimmed, a lone figure stood where before there had been two—a tall man in midnight-blue robes with a head of henna hackles, a stiff beard of black whiskers, and a bestial visage, flat as a simian's, accented by silver twists of eyebrow above a penetrating stare deep and dark as night.
The Furor's Mark
On a branch of the Storm Tree, high above the saffron deserts, arterial rivers, and crumpled mountain ranges of Middle Earth, Gorlois cowered before the Furor. "I am a Christian man!" he wailed. "Keep away from me,
savage spirit!"
The Furor's one, storm-gray eye narrowed, and he spoke in cold, measured tones. "You have no love of your nailed god, Gorlois—only of yourself. You cannot hide your heart from my all-seeing eye."
Gorlois quailed. "What do you want of me, dread one?"
"You have stolen the demon Lailoken's body." A small smile appeared in the Furor's massive beard. "This is an opportunity that the demon's enemies must not squander. We want him dead, of course—his soul returned to the House of Fog from whence he came."
"Then—I will die." Gorlois dared lift his head to meet the chill stare of the north god. "I do not want to die, All-Father!"
"So now I am All-Father to you, am I, Gorlois?"
"I have been dead." Gorlois wrung his hands at the thought. "I remember nothing. I was nothing. I'm alive again. Don't make me nothing."
"Fear not, Gorlois. We have a place for your soul in the womb of your daughter. When Lailoken's body dies, you will live again, the son of your own child." The Furor's eye glittered with laughter. "But we will not slay Lailoken at once. His body is useful to us. And so I am returning you to it."
"Oh thank you, great god of the north!"
"I am returning you to Lailoken's body with my mark upon you—so that you will hear and see me when I wish." The Furor leaned closer, and the purple scent of thunder dizzied the mortal man. "You will obey me in all things."
"I will, yes. I will obey you."
"For if you do not, Gorlois, I will yank you from the demon's body and cast you into the Realm of the Dead for the goddess Hel to do with as she pleases." The Furor stepped back. "Now stand and receive my mark."
Gorlois staggered upright and stood wobbling before the huge and hugely bearded god.
The Furor drew his knife and slowly placed it against Gorlois' forehead. "Stand still, man. If I mar this, you will go mad for all time. Stand still!"
Gorlois held himself rigid, and the cold blade of the Furor cut fury into his brow.
Arthor and Ygrane
News of King Arthor came to Tintagel daily by carrier pigeon and with travelers who arrived at the citadel of majestic white stone. Many of the wanderers came as pilgrims, to worship at the shrine tended by the Holy Sisters of the Graal. Those who had attended the five-year festival at Camelot and had seen the young king described him in exaggerated detail. By the time Marcus of the Dumnoni escorted Lord Lot, Chief Kyner, and King Arthor into the western audience room, where the Round Table stood, Ygrane, the white-robed abbess, had no notion what to expect.
Arthor stood taller than she had guessed. Only sixteen-years-old and beardless, he stood as tall as Kyner's giant son Cei, and though not nearly as heavily muscled, he possessed an imposing physical presence. His badger-brown hair, once cropped short as a Roman centurion's, had begun to grow in, and he wore it swept back from a broad brow and a face that bore her own traits—a broad nose and wide jaw. Above rosy cheeks, the yellow eyes of his father gazed at her, bright with tears of joy.
At their embrace, she smelled past the musk of horse to a darker, richer scent, as though sapphire had a fragrance—and her mind whirled with half-forgotten, happy memories of Uther Pendragon. She pulled away from him, her heart thudding. "This is my happiest day since I wed your father."
Lot, Kyner, and Marcus acknowledged the king's mother, then departed the audience room. Bedevere followed and closed the door after himself. Alone, mother and son stared silently at each other for a long spell. Ygrane touched his face and memorized his lineaments with her fingertips and her vivid green eyes.
"Every maiden in the kingdom will want you for her own," she spoke at last and smiled. "Is there one yet who has won your favor?"
"No, mother." The sound of the word mother resounded in him, for he had often referred to his patroness, the Blessed Virgin, by that title—and here was his true mother in holy vestment. Dread memory of Morgeu assailed him, and his lips trembled to speak of his mortal sin. But he could find no voice to confess that horror.
"The thought of love troubles you," she observed and took his hands in hers. "Come. Sit with me at the table from where you will resolve the conflicts of your people. Tell me of your pain."
Arthor's mind spun as he sat down in an ebony chair carved with a dragon and a unicorn. "I don't know how to begin ..."
"Tell me her name." Ygrane sat in the chair beside him and put an understanding hand atop his clenched fists. "She does have a name, this woman who has inflicted such hurt on a heart so young?"
"You know her name, mother." Arthor searched her baffled eyes to see if she understood.
"Me?" she guessed, and a needle of anguish pierced her heart. Her decision to surrender him as an infant stabbed her—not with guilt, for she knew she had given him up for his own safety—rather, she felt the hurt of having been deprived the chance to love him as a child. "Do you suffer because I sent you away so very young and forced you to live motherless?"
"No—" His voice withered to an agonized whisper, and he breathed the name that had cursed him. "Morgeu—the woman who hurts me is your daughter. Morgeu. My sister."
The Ghost in the Fog
Night in the north isles of Lot's domain tumbled sea fog out of the coves and up to the fir perches. Morgeu, wrapped in the pelage of minks, wandered the cold. Chanting smoke, she searched for her father's ghost, the soul of her child. A hungry moon, like a snuffed wick, dwindled in the west and vanished into phosphor depths.
"Morgeu—I am here," a gruff voice called from foggy dark among shaggy trees. "I am marked. Shield your eyes."
"Father?" Morgeu called. She groped through the vaporous night and knocked into a tree. "Where are you?"
"Here." Out of emaciated starlight and shredded fog, Gorlois ghost appeared. His face carved a terrifying pattern—one eye set sideways at the center of his brow and in the empty socket where that eye should have been his mouth mewled. His chin yanked severely to one side trembled. "Shield your eyes, daughter. I am marked by the Furor."
Morgeu's breath left her in one hot gust of smoke that carried a weak cry. "By the gods! What has happened to you?"
"The Furor—" His pale voice faded at the memory. The pain was gone now. In its stead, the future lay all unhidden, and by the strength of the Furor's strong eye he scryed across the breadth of time into a future he did not recognize—city wards of glass spires and horseless wagons of bossed metal on roadways smooth as poured night.
And the stink, the caustic stench of the future burned his lungs ...
"Father, father—what has become of you?" Morgeu's hands passed helplessly through the naked apparition.
Gorlois discerned that time extended as an unavoidable straight road. Far off across the centuries, he witnessed domelike glares of fire that punched blind holes in his vision. These bursts of radiance charred the cities of glass to black outlines as though pieces of the sun had fallen to Earth.
He lowered his gaze from the dazzling pain of apocalypse and focused closer to himself and his daughter Morgeu. Time seemed no straight road here in the fog and the essential light of the stars. Turning his head one way, he glimpsed his daughter glossed in sweat holding the bloody rag of a stillborn and seen from another angle, the child thrived at her breast.
"I am come at the Furor's bidding," Gorlois announced. "I am come to serve the All-Seeing."
At last, Morgeu understood. "The Furor has marked you to see what is yet to be." She stepped closer to the mangled visage of her father. "Tell me, what do you see for me?"
"I see birth and death both."
"Our future is yet to be decided," she told him. Her breath snapped smoke with her excitement. "How we fulfill the unaccomplished will decide our future. You must go back to the Furor—let him guide you. Go back, father."
Obediently, Gorlois stepped away into fog and joined the darkness.
Berserkers
The salt works of Droitwich and the seaweed farms of Rameslie provided the most lucrative exports from Dumnoni after the tin and silve
r mines. Duke Marcus, and before him Duke Gorlois, had taken great care to provide the best defenses for those coastal towns. War boats patrolled harbors and mounted soldiers stood sentinel on sea bluffs, ever vigilant for the low-lying, flat-bottomed raiding sculls of the Saxons. No one expected an attack by land.
Hunched like beasts among the hedges and vetch that congested the hills at the forest fringe above the two towns, several dozen storm raiders waited for noon. Wolf Warriors, devoted to the Furor, they had dedicated themselves to dying in battle.
Four nights before, shrouded by the new moon, they had landed on remote beaches and buried their boats in the dunes. Traveling only in darkness, they had reached the two bustling ports undetected.
At the moment that the sun attained its zenith and most fully illuminated the horror of their assault and the bravery of their sacrifice, the Wolf Warriors descended on their prey. They did not charge. They merely strode down the hill paths, heads high, red and gold manes brushed back by the sea breezes, war-axes carried casually across their shoulders. Naked but for thongs and sandals, they seemed mortally vulnerable.
Even when the boatwrights and net-weavers in the sandy lots behind the towns first spotted the Saxons and shouted alarms, the Wolf Warriors did not hurry their assault. Their relaxed approach to battle won them respect among the gods. The doom of Rameslie and Droitwich the very presence of the Wolves foreordained. There was no need to squander strength until what they had come to destroy lay in their grasp.
The screaming townsfolk fled onto the strand, for the Wolves had fanned out to block all inland escape routes. The Furor had decreed that none would be spared his killing frenzy save what the sea took for her own. Once within the town precincts, the Saxons smashed hearths and clay ovens and set fire to the cottages, the market stalls, and the dry docks.
The Wolf and the Crown (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 3) Page 10