“This is madness,” another chief roared from the shadows. “Even if this callow youth was acceptable, who, by the holy Sun, is he? We do not know his father’s house or mother-line. He may not even be a true son of Prydn, for all we know!”
Merlin sprang to his feet; smiling now, fierce and wolfish. His voice was the crack of a whip. “Ardhu’s blood could not be truer. For he is the son of U’thyr Pendraec, the Terrible Head, who once ranked high among you. His mother-line is Y’gerna of Belerion, the Land of Tin. It was I who worked the magic that brought that pair together, I who took their child from his cradle so that he might be raised to become a great leader! I, the Merlin, tell you this—is there any man who would gainsay me?”
There was a stunned silence. The warriors still looked surly, but there was doubt in their expressions too. And in many of the more youthful men, there was building excitement. They had been chained too long, hanging on the cloak-tails of elder chiefs who wanted to drink and recount the old days rather than defend their territories from the peril from the sea.
“He looked on me with favour!” The harsh, deep voice of Bohrs suddenly rang out. Bohrs, who had scowled at Ardhu on his first night as a Man-of-the-Tribe. “Yestereven, after the festivities, the new King of Albu looked on me with favour! He asked me to assist him to his tent! I am truly blessed! I will pledge my dagger-arm to him!”
“And I too!” A lighter voice rang out; tall Per-Adur with his horse-mane yellow hair. “I would have moved the stone myself but had not the strength. The boy-king did. The spirits have spoken!”
Merlin smiled, sly and secret in the shadows of the grove. A victory. It was only one battle, and the very first, but he and his young ward had won.
*****
At the next full Moon Ardhu, the Dark Bear, son of the Terrible Head, mother-born of the Tin-lords, was brought to the temple of Khor Ghor to receive the blessing of the Ancestors, and to accept the Sacred Signs of Kingship from Merlin.
The young man was dressed in his father’s tunic and hair-tresses, and Carnwennan was bound at his side in a deerskin sheath, its rusty blade replaced anew by the arts of Ech-tor. Silent and stern, his body painted with protective symbols, he was guided by priests along the Sacred Avenue, past the great Sun-Stone and the Guardians, and into the sanctity of the Khor Ghor itself.
Merlin stood in the shadow of the Great Trilithon, beside the Stone of Adoration. He was dressed in his full priest’s regalia: a painted skin cloak and long robe fringed with the teeth and claws of many beasts. A bull’s horn headdress sat on his brow and his face was wreathed in chalk spirals that circled his dark eyes, making them look huge and surreal. By his feet rested a woven basket, its contents shrouded by a skin.
“Come forward,” he beckoned, “and kneel before the spirits of this place, who rule the movements of the heaven and confer fertility upon the earth. Be humble in their presence and those of the Ancestors who made you, their long dead flesh into yours.”
Ardhu sank to his knees. He glanced upwards, trying to take in the sights few mortal eyes were permitted to see. The stones—how high they were, how massive! The shimmering, micaceous sandstone block of the Altar-stone loomed above him and beyond it the tallest of the blue-tinged Ancestor-stones, which had come from the Western lands, the birthplace of the Merlin. On his right, one cumbrous trilithon faced due West, and on its face he could see the rectangular carving of She-Who-Watches-the-Dead. She had no eyes, no face, just a carved crook springing from her head, but he could feel her presence watching him, deciding the plan of his life and the hour of his death. He shivered slightly.
“Look at me, Ardhu son of U’thyr.” Merlin spoke, his voice deep with emotion. Today is a day of great portent, of great change. A new era is dawning in Albu, in all of Prydn, and you and I will be as Sun and Moon, rising in splendour and power before the people. Do you swear to follow my guidance is this venture?”
“I do swear it.”
“And will you honour the Stones and those who have gone before?”
“I will honour them.”
“And will you give your life for the land, if it is asked of you?”
Ardhu hesitated; a cloud streaked over the face of the Sun, and shadows suddenly galloped around the stones, turning their stark faces sinister, frowning. “I…I…will... ”
“Then you shall be granted the symbols of high chiefdom, which no man has borne for hundreds of years, since before our father’s father’s time.”
Merlin drew forth from his basket a round shield embossed with bronze. The rectangular image of the Guardian was graven on its gleaming surface, which was the colour of the dying Sun at Midwinter. “This is Wyngurthachar, Face of Evening. Let it shield you as you shield the folk of Prydn.”
Reverently he fastened the shield on Ardhu’s left shoulder; it was heavy, and Ardhu staggered a moment at the unexpected weight before recovering his balance. “My shield,” he said. “Shield of Albu against her foes.”
Merlin reached into the basket again, drawing out an item wrapped in dried moss. The covering crumbled away beneath his fingers to reveal a golden lozenge, incised by mystical, geometric designs. He held it aloft, catching the Sunlight; it flashed as though in answer to the burning orb in the heavens. “The breastplate of the Sky. Some say it was once used as a tool to assist the architects of Khor Ghor, others that it plots the motions of the Sun, and the dance of the rising stars.”
He fastened the plate to Ardhu’s tunic with thin leather thongs, before lifting up the last item from the woven container. It was a ceremonial mace, its polished head wrought from a fossil. Five lightning-like decorations of bone encircled the wooden handle, their number signifying the five trilithons of Khor Ghor. “This is Rhon-gom, the lightning-Mace of kingship,” said Merlin. “With it, you may smite down your enemies as lightning smites the earth.”
Ardhu took the mace, running his fingers over its smooth dome, feeling its energy flow into him. It was as if all his forefathers, from their long houses under the hill, were passing their strength and courage to him. “If I can be even half as worthy a ruler as my Ancestors, I will not have lifted this mace in vain,” he whispered to the all-seeing sky, the all-knowing stones.
Merlin gestured the young chieftain toward a screen raised before the left-hand stone of the southern trilithon known as the Gate of Kings. This trilithon had the finest tooling and crafting of the hard sarsen, giving the structure a very sharp and precise appearance above all the others. Art frowned; what could be behind the screen of stretched deerskin, shielded from all eyes except those of holy men and ghosts?
“One of the Hallows of Prydn lies behind that covering,” said Merlin. “Only a true leader, a true king, can touch it and live.”
Reaching out, the shaman thrust the screen away. Ardhu gasped. There, fitted within the stone itself, was a dagger of gold, longer and thinner than those used in the West—a thing of great beauty, shining brightly as the afternoon Sunlight slanted into the great circle. Beside it were several large flame-coloured bronze axes, also beat into the hard sarsen, and around them dozens of smaller axe carvings.
“Symbols of kingship,” said Merlin. “The sword of the Sun and the axe of the Sky. Come, forward, Ardhu of Prydn and set your hand upon this stone, your legacy, your destiny.”
Ardhu reached out a trembling hand. What if the Merlin was wrong? What if he was unacceptable in some way? Would fire gush from heaven and smite him?
But no…his palm came to rest upon the shiny, smooth gold, hot from the Sun, and no angry rebuttal came from heavens or earth.
“It is done!” Merlin shouted, and now his voice was great, bouncing around the circles, carrying to the priests and chiefs and warriors gathered outside the banks of the temple. “The rightful ruler has set his hand upon the Sword-in-the-Stone! The kings of old have return at last to the green fields of Albu the White, and a new Age of Men has begun!”
CHAPTER NINE
“A king must have a suitable dwelling plac
e, a pre-eminent camp where he may gather his warriors and confer with them.” Merlin shuffled around his hut in Deroweth, his silvered hair incandescent in the watery early morning light streaming through the door. An acolyte in a grubby robe was attending his fire-pit, baking bannocks for the priest and the young king who still lay abed under a pile of furs.
“But why, Merlin?” Art rolled over, stifling a yawn with his fist, looking both sleepy and impossibly young. “I like being here with you, my friend and advisor. And Deroweth is well known to all as a place of great learning and might—and so it has been for many generations.”
Merlin shook his head. “Your position is still precarious, because of your youth and the circumstances of your birth. If you stay here for too long, wicked tongues will wag and men will say you are my pawn, a puppet-king under the control of the priests.”
“And do you not control me?”Ardhu said carelessly, flopping onto his back as he yanked on his tunic, trousers and boots. “Since you are telling me to get out, and I must obey whether I wish it or not?”
Merlin shot him a sour look. “If I did not know you were jesting, well, you are not so old or so mighty that I might not tan your hide!”
“Hah!” Art smoothed down his sleek dark hair and twined a bronze circlet around it. “Like to see you try.”
“Do not tempt me beyond endurance, whelp! Now come… I will show you the place I think may be suitable for building.”
The priest and the young chief left the hut and strolled down the metalled road to the river, joining the well-worn track that led toward Place-of-Light. It was a fine day, with Sunlight rippling on the swell, and dragonflies whirring and darting above the reeds on the water’s edge. Halfway along, not far from the barrow-ridge of the Seven Kings, Merlin turned aside and lead Ardhu into a boggy field. The twin banks of the Avenue cut across it, running down towards the curving silver snake of the river and the robbed stone-pits of the Old Circle. Above, shadowing the sacred pathway, rose a mighty hill with a tip like the prow of a ship jutting toward the eastern Sunrise.
Merlin gestured to it. “Your domain, Ardhu. Can you not see it? A huge fort of stout oak, gazing out toward not only Khor Ghor and Deroweth, but to Harrow and Magic Hill. A place of warriors …a place of legends!”
Arthur gazed up at the hill, its banks green with oak and elm, and silver birch with graceful boughs that fluttered like pennants against the rain-washed sky. His mind whirled, and suddenly he could envision all that his mentor had said—earthen ramparts and wooden palisades, and a mighty hall the likes of which had never before been seen in Albu. “What is this place called?” he asked.
Merlin stared at the tree-clad heights, shadows stretching down from its prow-like tip. “Kham-El-Ard. The crooked High Place.”
“I am surprised no one has built here before.”
“It has been thought of as a haunt. A pool gathers at the foot of the hill that retreats and then grows, like the tides, like the Moon…a place of women’s magic. This magic has kept men away. That, and spirits from the hunters’ time. In the time before Dreams they came to the pool and gave thanks for their kills with gifts of flints and weapons.”
“I fear no ghosts.”Ardhu stepped forward. “I am glad you have showed me this place, Merlin. I think much can be accomplished here.”
Merlin nodded. “I have already sent for great woodworkers in both East and West to come here. They are following the Tin-routes across land even as we speak. Many men want to catch a glimpse of you, even beyond the Five Cantrevs. Word of a King returned to Khor Ghor has spread like a summer fire!”
“Merlin, let us explore this hill, and not return to Deroweth till late. If this hill is to be the place of my high seat, I want to know every inch of it.”
The shaman nodded and the young king and the older man walked into the shadow of the great hill of Kham-El-Ard. Skirting its broad base, they reached an area where water rose from the ground and weeds and fronds waved in the wind. Trees and brush grew thickest here, twining and twisting, branches forming an impenetrable backdrop to a round pool formed between the bank and a wide curve of Abona. Tendrils of fog hovered over the seed-speckled surface, showing that the spring feeding the pool was warm, heated by some great furnace within the heart of the earth.
Art knelt on the shore of the pool, breathing heavily, eyes scanning the waters and the dark foliage beyond. Merlin stood motionless, his feet crushing the flint tools of bygone men where they lay on the bank, suddenly reminded of Afallan, where he had loved a bright-eyed priestess called Nin-Aeifa. The dark lake, filled with mystery, the waters of Life and Death…
“Ardhu…someone is here!” he suddenly rasped, and he reached for Art’s shoulder with one hand and pulled his dagger from his belt with the other.
Ardhu rose, his gaze intent on the waters. The mist was rising more strongly from the surface; coiling up into vast ghost shapes that streamed out upon the wind. Merlin could smell the magic in it, the glamour of Otherness. Time did not advance; it was as if the movement of the Sun himself had stilled, and all the woodland was silent, as if even the birds and beasts held their breath.
There was an eerie tinkling sound, and the mists began to part. Out onto the lake glided a raft, poled by a stately woman. At first glance she seemed almost a creature of the Un-world, maybe even the spirit of the wild places. Braids stiffened with lime tumbled to her hips; blue faience beads danced along their length. She wore a long, green skirt of twisted thongs interspersed with what seemed to be dried aquatic weeds, and all down the front of her deerskin bodice were sewn hundreds of tiny shells and quartzes, swinging and clashing and making merry noise as she moved. Her head was bowed so that her face was hidden, but her exposed hands and throat was daubed with paint made from a paste of fish scale and chalk, which gave her a faintly surreal glitter as the thin Sunlight wandered over her.
“Ardhu the Dark Bear…” Her voice rang out over the pool, a voice of wind and rushing water. “You come to claim your kingdom, and I, the Lady of the lake, come to greet you.”
Merlin jumped and his face flushed then paled. That voice…he knew it, dreamt of it when he grew weak and the wants of mortal flesh came upon him, making him bitter and morose. Nights when he turned and groaned in his furs, the arthritis nagging in his back, his brain afire with dreams of long, water-scented hair and white limbs that coiled around him, taking his will, his powers, even as he took his pleasure.
He peered across the water, trying to control the tremble in his hands…Yes, yes, he could see her face more clearly now, and it was she, Nin-Aeifa, one of the Nine Maids of Afallan. But in the intervening years she had changed. Changed greatly.
Gone was the sprightly, quick-tongued girl who had pressed her dagger to his throat in one instant, then led him to her bed in the next. She was still beautiful, but it was a ruined and surreal beauty: her left eye was blind, milky, an orb that gazed only upon the Otherworld. The other eye was as he remembered, but full of care and sorrow. She was thinner and somehow more regal, the planes of her face sharp as flint beneath the bleached and plaited mass of her hair.
“Nin-Aeifa,” he breathed.
“Merlin.” She smiled and it was like the Sun lancing through clouds. “I thought we might be bound in some way to each other, even if not in the way I once desired.”
Ardhu glanced at his mentor. “You know this... this woman?”
“Indeed,” murmured Merlin. “I know her well.”
“More than any other living man,” said Nin-Aeifa.
“Why have you come here, from the far-off dreaming isle?”
She shook her head and smiled again. “Wise Merlin has been so busy with his young king; he has not noticed what has taken place around the Great Plain. The High Priestess of Afallan heard of the coming of the King, and sent forth a band of priestesses to minister to him, to bring him great gifts of great power. We have built a dwelling in the vale beyond, where the lakes mirror the stars and the Sun. I am chief of those holy women; I a
m the Lady of the Lake, second only to High Priestess Vy’ahn of Afallan.”
She then turned from Merlin and stretched out a hand toward Ardhu. “Dark Bear, come and let me gaze closely upon you. I wish to see the chosen one!”
Ardhu hesitantly waded out into the water. Leaves and weeds curled about his calves. The water was warmer than he expected and strangely soothing.
“Nin-Aeifa, you be careful with him!” barked Merlin. “Remember—he is mine.”
Nin-Aeifa smiled again, and this time her expression was cruel. “Yours? You take another man’s son, when you will not beget your own? But fear not, the Lady of the Lake shall not interfere with the wiles of the Merlin. Not yet. But the Nine Maidens may claim him at the end, as all go back to Mother Ahn-ann.”
Ardhu had now reached the edge of Nin-Aiefa’s raft. She knelt down, catching his face in her glittering, glimmering fingers, with nails long and pearled as talons. Her blind, smoky eye, weird and unblinking, was almost pressed up against his own eye. “Yes, you are the one,” she said. “I can see into your heart, I see your past and your future. King you will be beyond compare, if you fall not into folly. Merlin has taught you well and no doubt armed you well against your enemies. But I have a weapon beyond peer that waits for the touch of your hand. One of the Lords of Eld bore it, its blade forged by magic smiths who came from distant lands of Ice Mountains, and at his death it was consigned to the waters of this sacred pool, an offering to the spirits of this most ancient place.”
"And what is this talisman of which you speak?” Ardhu asked through chattering teeth.
"It is called Caladvolc, the Hard Cleft,” Nin-Aeifa replied.“Look below you, Ardhu the Dark. It is there. Waiting”
Art stared down into the waters swirling around him. The Lady moved her hand and it seemed to the young chief that the mists lingering over the sacred pool parted, darting away like errant spirits. Below, the water was clear…and something burned orange beneath its surface, down among the waving weeds.
Stone Lord: The Legend of King Arthur (The Era Of Stonehenge) Page 15