by C J Brown
Arthur looked at him.
“Arthur,” Olivie said. “You must do what’s right. You must. Return my father to the light. End the wars. End all the suffering. And don’t let our deaths have been for nothing.”
Arthur looked at her. “I understand what you ask of me.” He looked back at his father. “I do. But I cannot do it. I failed once. You died. I died. Demetia was lost.” Arthur shook his head. “If I go back, I will only create false hope. And false hope is worse than knowing your doom is near. Because when you hope, and that hope is crushed, it is a more devastating thing than anything else.”
He looked at Merlin. “I’m sorry.”
And then he disappeared.
Uther was looking at where he had been, as was Olivie.
“Uther, Olivie,” Merlin said, “there is something I regret I must ask of you.”
They both looked at him.
“Clearly, Arthur listens to you more than he does to me. I need you to convince him that he must return. The fate of the world is depending on it.”
“How do you know this?” Uther asked.
Merlin looked at them.
“I can tell you,” he said, “but you cannot tell Arthur. Knowing one’s future, if good, usually tends to make it bad, and knowing one’s future, if bad, usually tends to make it true.”
“We swear not to tell him,” Olivie said.
Merlin thought for a moment.
“Arthur is destined to reunite the tribes of the Isle, to accomplish what our predecessors three thousand years ago failed to do, to wield the sword of light again, and to establish true peace and stability. Without him, it cannot happen.”
“What happened three thousand years ago?” Uther asked. “Rome wasn’t even around.”
“No, it was not. But I am not the right person to tell you what happened. Amidst Starhearth there are two souls who can tell you and Arthur. Their names are Mergus Megolin, and Raylon Fergus.”
“Raylon Fergus. The first Fergus king of Caledonia?” Olivie asked.
Merlin nodded.
“And Mergus Megolin is a predecessor of yours?”
“Aye.”
Uther looked at him. “We’ll speak to them,” he said.
“Thank you. But I’m telling you again, Arthur must return. He must. The fate of the world is depending on him.”
He opened his eyes and saw Arthur before him.
“You’re almost home, cousin,” he said.
Merlin got down from the wagon as the column kept walking and went up to Verovingian, atop his saddle and beyond the ring of Royal Guards.
“Verovingian,” Merlin said.
His friend turned to see him.
“My prince. Shall I send for your horse?”
“No, thank you, friend. Whoever has it now most definitely needs it more than I do. I can walk.”
Verovingian nodded. “How is Arthur?” he asked quietly.
“He will be well,” Merlin said.
He felt he had peace again. Everything felt certain. Olivie and Uther would be able to convince Arthur to return, and he would return a healed man.
The sky was lead, and the sun’s rays seemed to struggle to get through the clouds, but the horizon didn’t seem as bleak anymore.
Then he remembered something.
He reached for the waterskin at his side, gleeful, and drank from it.
It tasted foul.
8
Sanctuary
The hours felt like days as the sun rose higher.
At midday, they heard the far-off roar of thunder and looked to see a brooding mass, black and lighting up here and there with lightning, approaching from the east.
“We will not stop,” Megolin said. “We are three hours from Gilidor, and we cannot waste more time.”
So, they kept marching.
And then the storm winds began to rise.
The trees creaked and cracked. Twigs snapped off from the branches, and the leaves that blanketed the ground swirled around them like bees swarming a foraging bear.
Even with his hood up, Merlin could still feel the wind pelting the back of his head.
The crack of lightning set the horses to neighing, and then the roaring thunder drowned out all other noise.
A little while later, the rains began to fall. They pinged off armor, battered the oaken wagons, turned the road to mud, and soaked Merlin and all of the rest to the bone.
The wind lashed his face with water, and Merlin had to squint to see. His cloak snapped and billowed as he fought to walk, with the mud holding back his legs.
He looked at the wagon carrying Arthur. Its wheels were sinking further in the ruts as the horses struggled to bear it forward, their hooves scratching the ground more than plodding forward.
No one ate, and for that, Merlin was grateful.
The water tasting foul after he had spoken to Uther and Olivie had just been too much for him to handle. Time was running out, and Arthur was not going to return. Merlin felt the tugging at his heart more painfully now. And though it was raining, he could feel himself sweating, and he was colder than any storm had the right to make him.
He looked at the wagon again and chanted some spell of the old speech.
At once, the wagon stopped sinking, and the horses found it easier to heave the cart forward.
At least he hadn’t failed at that.
The storm slowed them, so they arrived a few hours after Megolin had said they would.
Merlin was staring at the ground when Verovingian stopped beside him. “Merlin!” he yelled over the wind and rain.
Merlin stopped and was raising his head to see him when he spotted the great star fortress rising up from the green fields. Stony and bleak, the wind howled around the points of the star that bristled with scorpions and boasted granite watchtowers with fires burning at the top that rose higher still from the battlements, lined with archers standing to attention, and a row of iron torches crackling before them, guttering from the wind.
The main gate was a giant portcullis. Its heavy iron bars looked black amidst the darkness of the storm. Two standards flanked the gate, heavy from the rain, and boasted the crest of the De Grance clan, a glowing torch amidst a field of green.
Merlin eyed the battlements as their own standard hung soaked and heavy beside Megolin.
Everyone stood still as the rains poured, the lightning cracked, and the thunder roared.
As Merlin fought to see through the darkness and the rain, he saw the iron portcullis begin to rise, but they could not hear the rattling of chains or the iron creak.
Its muddy spikes rose up from the ground and stopped twelve feet above.
Megolin trotted forward. The Royal Guards ahead of him who had been watching trotted ahead, and then the entire column was marching toward the gate.
Only when Merlin was standing there did he actually see how monstrous the fortress was. The battlements seemed a hundred feet away, supported by layer upon layer of great granite blocks held secure by mortar, with the torches that lined the crenelations appearing as small fireflies from where he stood.
The arch of the portcullis seemed to be guarded by a wall of water that ended at the ground where a great muddy puddle had formed.
Merlin saw his father, Igraine, and the Royal Guards go through, and then he couldn’t see beyond the shield of rain.
Merlin and Verovingian followed.
They walked through the curtain of water to find some respite from the rains once they stood beneath the portcullis. Verovingian’s horse whickered, its breath misting before its nose. Merlin looked behind and saw that the wagon carrying Arthur was moving through the first curtain of water.
Another shield awaited at the end of the archway, three granite blocks away, and beyond that, more rain that turned the ground a muddy, slippery l
andscape.
When they walked out of the archway, they found a second wall with another gate and walked through to find Megolin and Igraine awaiting them at the gate of the bailey that separated the receiving yard from the rest of the city. Verovingian swung down from his horse, and holding it with the reins, walked with Merlin to the gate as the rest of their column filed through the main one.
A few wooden buildings crowded the other end of the yard.
They were the barracks, Merlin surmised.
When they reached the bailey, a lad ran up to walk Verovingian’s horse away.
Standing by the gate, with a granite arch shielding them from the rain, Merlin lowered his hood as water flowed off his hair and face and puddled around his shoes.
“Your Grace,” Verovingian said, bowing his head. “Lady Igraine.”
“Father. Aunt,” Merlin greeted them.
The turned as the wagon carrying Arthur stopped just by the raised gate.
Then they turned and walked through. The rains were no less merciful there, but there were more buildings here. The muddy, puddled road was lined with oaken taverns and shops. The rain flowed off the slate roofs and poured onto the street a few yards away from the doors of the shops.
Signs hung from the sides of the buildings, swinging from the wind, though the squeak of the iron bars that anchored them to the building was lost amidst the howling wind and thunderous rains.
Merlin and Verovingian followed the rest of the royal family and the Royal Guards towards the end of the street.
Merlin had been here before. The last time, High General Meerbark had met them at the main gate and told them of the changes he’d made to the city. But now, with the dark tidings that were being received from all corners of the Isle, and with rains almost as heavy as their sorrow, no one was particularly keen about sightseeing or boasting of the fortress.
There was another wall at the end of the street. From here, Merlin saw it wrapping around the second ring of the city. It too was crowned with merlons and torches, and there were huts along the battlements for garrison soldiers to seek shelter and rest, unlike the first wall, and there weren’t as many soldiers watching from this one.
The portcullis began to rise as they approached. By the time they got there, it was already high enough for all of them to walk through to the third ring.
Gilidor was broken up into four rings, as Merlin had learned the first time he had seen the city with his father. The first was occupied by half the garrison. The second and third were where the townsfolk lived, and the fourth was where the keep and the rest of the ten-thousand strong garrison was.
Land’s End was a maritime nation. Three of its borders were with the sea, one with the Narrow Sea, the western one with the Great Ocean, and the northern one with the Emerald Sea. There were some threats beyond that, but the Rodwinians had long since lost their maritime supremacy. All of Land’s End’s major threats were from the rest of the land.
Gilidor, though it was at the border with Demetia, was meant to guard Land’s End from more northern threats. A series of forts with Gilidor at the center formed the center of Land’s End’s defense, protecting what little land Land’s End owned that bordered Rodwin to the Narrow Sea.
Merlin hoped it would be enough to hold back the tidal wave that was drowning all the Isle with fire.
Beyond the gate to the second ring, a host of guards greeted them.
The rain pelted their iron scale armor as they stood there, their spears towering above them.
Standing before them was their general, the castellan of Gilidor. Meerbark’s pauldrons bore the torch of the De Grance clan, as did his cuirasse. His vambraces were polished steel, and the elbows of his hauberk could be seen between them and his pauldrons. His knees boasted leather caps, and his shoes were laced sandals.
The helm he held at his side was an iron halfhelm with an iron spike jutting up.
Megolin approached him, the army of cloaks snapping and swirling.
“Your Grace,” Meerbark shouted, bowing his head. “We all offer you our condolences for the loss of Demetia! Our prayers go to those who were left behind.”
“Thank you,” Megolin yelled. “Alas, I had hoped we’d meet again amidst better conditions. But today, my people and I arrive at Gilidor as refugees. We request shelter till the storm moves on, and then I’m leaving for the capital. And, I must tell you, we have two bodies with us.”
Meerbark nodded and turned to his men. “Split!” he yelled.
The formation of fifty guards broke into two, and Megolin walked between, followed by Igraine, Merlin, Verovingian, and the cart bearing Arthur.
Merlin saw Verovingian eyeing the cart as it rattled past, heading towards the keep.
9
Dragon
At the Capital in Land's End
The storm had lashed the ground for two days. Sheets of ice had formed on the buildings and the gates and even the fields.
But the clouds had cleared, and the sun had returned.
Within hours of the storm’s end, the sun’s rays had melted away the ice, and the cold was beginning to lighten.
One by one, people began reemerging from their homes, and the city returned to life.
But Guinevere hadn’t needed for the cold to lift.
Once the rains stopped, she snuck out of the keep and ran off to the oak grove.
Autumn had rid the branches of most of their leaves, and the rains had turned the grove into a damp, heavy, mushy world.
But the nineteen year old Guinevere did not find herself sinking. With a simple spell, she walked across the ground as light as air.
The ancient barks were carved with old faces.
Who had actually carved them was still a mystery to the warlocks, and to even the wisest warlocks of earlier times. But everyone knew they were carved by good souls, and the belief spun around them was that they were the faces of ancient powers beyond the average fellow’s ken, and that only the wisest could directly communicate with them.
Guinevere approached one of the trees.
Its carved eyelids were shut, and the branch that formed its nose was gnarled. The slash that was its lips was a mean line, and all its face was wrinkled with a thousand fissures that ran across the gnarly bark.
“Speak to me, for I am here to know,” she said to the face.
At once, the eyelids flicked open, revealing golden orbs where the black of a person’s eyes were.
The rest of the bark moved with its face as it frowned.
“Why do you wake the sleeping?” it asked with a voice old and calm.
“I’m here to learn,” she said. “I may be talented, but my magic isn’t as powerful as it should be yet.”
The ancient face looked at her. “Practice,” it croaked. “Practice. And don’t wake the sleeping.”
The tree closed its eyes again, and then it was just a carving.
Guinevere shook her head and turned around.
She raised her hand, and a blue orb launched from it. Crackling and trailing blue, it sailed between the trees and struck the canopy. A few leaves and twigs snapped off, but nothing more.
Then she conjured another one with each of her palms and held them together.
The great blue orb grew as she supplied more energy through her arms, and then she let it fly towards the heavens.
The thing sped past the canopy and rose up high above the city. For a long time, she watched as it flew upward, so bright that she could still see it from where she stood.
She was sure that if anyone looked up, they’d see it, too.
But then, after a while, the orb lost its energy, disintegrated till it seemed a pebble, and was gone.
Guinevere looked again at the trees around her, all carved with sleeping faces.
She closed her eyes and imagined a little beast that g
lowed blue. Its tail was bristling with thorns, and its wings and head were scaled. Its teeth were as sharp as a shark’s, and its eyes were ice blue.
She opened her eyes, and it was there, walking across the ground, blue tendrils rising from it.
It looked at her, and then breathed a lance of blue flame that cut through the air, illuminating the surroundings with blue fire. When the flame disappeared, she saw that smoke was rising from its nostrils.
It ran forward, kicking up the leaves, and then launched from the ground.
Guinevere laughed as it fluttered around, struggling to stay airborne, and then crashed back to the ground.
Poor thing. She swiped her hand, and the dragon dispersed into blue dots of light that floated away.
Perhaps she would do better with creatures she knew more about. She slipped away from the most ancient oaks, conjuring rabbits here, squirrels there, and cats and dogs amongst them. They all loped after her, which made her laugh.
“Lady Guinevere!” A baritone voice sounded through the trees.
At once, the glowing forms began to disperse, and Guinevere ran to a tree and looked around.
“Lady Guinevere!” The voice yelled again. “Your lord parents told you not to wander around with your magic!”
Lord’s Guards. Guinevere squinted and saw a group of them walking through the trees, their scale armor reflecting the light of the sun.