by Frank Miller
The end of prophecy?
Nine doves.
Merlin’s thoughts swirled. A great magical leader. A new dawn. A great war.
All of it was coming.
Dellum the physician had long fingers that sewed flesh together with the precision of a seamstress. Due to the high humidity in his chambers of black stone, sweat dripped from his long nose onto the corpse he was stitching back together. The ceilings were low and without windows. The only light was from two oil lanterns at opposite ends of the room, which shone dully on six wide tables, four of which held naked bodies in varying states of decomposition.
“I’m told you are a collector of sorts. Is this true?”
Dellum yelped. He dropped his instruments onto the floor. “Who goes there?”
“I do.” Merlin stepped into the yellow light.
“How did you—?”
“The door was open.”
Dellum wiped his sweaty face with a grimy rag that hung on his belt. “You’re Merlin the Magician.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
Dellum’s eyes dodged about. “I don’t—I was told to not collect—I’ve stopped all that. Everything is aboveboard here.”
“Pity,” Merlin sighed. “I was willing to pay handsomely to see some of your more”—he searched for the word—“obscure items.”
“Is that so?” Dellum scratched his hands. He glanced to a heavy oak door near the back of the chamber. “What, eh, what sort of item were you looking for?”
“The number three,” Merlin answered.
Dellum frowned at this, but after a moment his face lit up. “I may have just the thing.”
The heavy door protested as Dellum pushed it open. Merlin stepped past him into a smaller chamber. The lantern he carried spilled light over shelves and shelves of dusty, grim little jars. He gagged at the smell of spoiling meat. Dellum crossed the room. He eagerly scooped a bundle into his arms and brought it over to the examination table for Merlin’s inspection. The object was wrapped in a greasy cloth.
“It arrived three days ago,” Dellum explained. “Born to a peasant family in Colchester.”
He unwrapped the specimen. As usual, Merlin betrayed no emotion. The infant was probably a week or two old, withered and pale green from rot, its small arms curled, tiny fists balled. Its head was divided evenly into two faces, though each shared a misshapen eye just above the two noses.
Merlin turned to Dellum and raised an eyebrow.
“Allow me,” the physician purred. He lifted the dead baby from the table and turned it over as though to burp it. This revealed a third face pressing out of the child’s tiny back in a silent scream, like a creature trapped between worlds.
“That will do,” Merlin said quietly, his thoughts far away.
Dellum gently wrapped the baby back in its cloth. “Might I, ah, inquire as to your interest in the number three?”
“Three is where the past, the present, and the future meet,” Merlin said, almost to himself. His robes swirled behind him as he headed for the door. “Something terrible and powerful has awakened. You should be afraid. We should all be afraid.”
The door slammed behind him.
SEVEN
NIMUE AWOKE WITH A START to piteous cries. How long have I been unconscious? she wondered, her thoughts sticky and slow. Jolts of agony forked across her skull, and her hand went to a wet patch of hair and a knot just below her left ear where the iron ball had struck her. Numbly, she pulled herself from the woodpile and took in the chaos: village elders roasting on fiery crosses, red robes everywhere, children crying in the mud, every village hut aflame, dogs sniffing dead bodies in the road.
A guttural cry of “Mother!” ripped from her throat. She charged across the road, skull throbbing, racing past bodies and toppled carts. Almost immediately, a Red Paladin took hold of her cloak, but Nimue twisted and it tore free into the paladin’s hands.
Nimue lunged onto the hill, the Red Paladin in pursuit. She ran past charred bodies on the crosses, their limbs twisted. The paladin stumbled behind her, and Nimue created some distance. She sprinted into the Iron Wood, dodging between trees until her boots landed on the well-worn stones of the Sacred Sun Path. She flew through the veiled entrance of the Sunken Temple, and from her perch high above the temple floor, she saw Lenore, curled in a ball by the altar stone.
“Mother!”
The pyre loomed like a black tower over Squirrel as he raced along the deer paths of the Iron Wood. He’d grown up hunting with his uncles and grandfather, and now his survival depended on those paths. His cousin’s sword bounced painfully against his legs as he caught sight of his uncle through the branches.
“Uncle Kipp!”
Kipp was a farmer with arms like trees. Several other villagers, men Squirrel knew, motioned for quiet. Kipp spied his nephew and hurried toward him. “Squirrel, child, we mustn’t shout. We’re looking for the bastards we chased into the woods.”
“We have to go back,” Squirrel pleaded, pulling his uncle’s sleeve. “They’re all dying!”
Kipp shook his head. The wrinkles on his broad face were deeper than usual. He looked ten years older. “They’re already gone, child.”
Up ahead, the men came to a full stop at a clearing in the trees. Squirrel and his uncle caught up with them.
Kipp started, “What are you—?” The rest died in his throat as he saw the Gray Monk, with the strange tear-marked eyes, waiting for them in the tall grass like a sun-dappled wraith. His courser grazed nearby.
The wood grew quiet. The monk did not move. Squirrel could smell the sweat of the men turn sour with fear. These were not warriors. They were carpenters and the sons of bakers. Squirrel’s uncle was the only one of them who had killed with steel, but that was years ago, defending his family against Viking raiders. But if his uncle was afraid, he did not show it.
Kipp growled. “We’re seven and he’s one.”
They were, in fact, eight. Squirrel’s uncle had forgotten to include him. The others drew their swords with a single shining sound. Squirrel swallowed as he tried to lift his own sword, though he stayed a step behind the men who encircled the Gray Monk. The monk calmly drew his gleaming blade.
One of the men,Tenjen, angled himself directly behind the monk, switching sword hands to wipe his sweaty palms on his smock. The monk held his sword low and loose on his left side. He tilted his head slightly as Tenjen shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Squirrel’s temples throbbed with tension. He watched the others huff and rev themselves for battle while the monk’s breathing never changed.
Tenjen roared and lunged, but the Gray Monk smoothly pivoted away from the strike and in the same fluid motion stepped backward into Tenjen’s path. Squirrel never saw the monk’s sword move until it stuck out of Tenjen’s back, slick with his blood. With a wet sound, the monk freed his sword, and Tenjen pitched forward into the dirt.
On instinct, Squirrel lifted his sword, but his mind was blank. A terrible buzzing filled his ears. His tongue was cat dry. The men’s screams were distant and their movements slowed as their swords swung and the monk spun inside their circle, his robes swirling, his blade catching the sun. He wasted nary an inch. His sword struck like a snake and men crumpled in its wake. He cut the tendons in the backs of their legs so they dropped like puppets, then severed throats and punctured hearts. There was no hacking, no cuts, no grazes, no fumbles of any kind.
Ewan, the baker’s son, fell onto his knees, trying to hold the blood inside his opened throat with both of his hands. Those same hands had drizzled honey over the crispels in his father’s kitchen.
Drof the butcher missed badly, lodging his sword in the earth. He struggled to free it, which was all the time the monk needed to crouch low and launch upward, lifting Drof off his feet, pushing the blade through his body and out his right shoulder blade.
Squirrel’s uncle was the first to block one of the monk’s strikes. Kipp caught his blade with the hilt. Their steel scrape
d as their shoulders slammed together. For a split second, the monk was caught up and his flank exposed. Squirrel saw a window to act. He stepped forward to protect his uncle, but Hurst, Tenjen’s cousin, also saw the opportunity to strike and lunged ahead of Squirrel. The monk must have sensed his approach, because he wrapped his arms around Kipp and turned him into the path of Hurst’s sword, which sank deep into his hip. As Kipp cried out and clutched at his side, the monk whipped around and lopped off Hurst’s head.
A mist of blood sprayed Squirrel’s cheeks. Kipp stood his ground bravely as blood dribbled down his left leg. The monk circled him, moving fast. Kipp tried to follow him with the point of his sword. The monk feinted twice, Kipp bit on the second, and that was it. The monk stuck him through the chest, and he folded to the ground.
The Gray Monk surveyed the scene of dead and dying men with his strange weeping eyes. He walked among the bodies and waited for signs of life. He nudged Tenjen with his boot. No response. He prodded the twins Kevin and Trey and finished them with a clean stroke through the heart. When it was Kipp’s turn, the monk readied the blow and—
“Don’t!” That was all Squirrel could say.
The monk barely tilted his head toward the word. He whirled around and . . . hesitated. Squirrel could hear the vibration of the blade beside his ear. His hands trembled as he pointed his cousin’s sword at the monk. Squirrel could not see the monk’s eyes beneath his deep gray cowl, only his strange tear birthmarks and a smear of blood on his left cheek. With a swift flick, the monk sent Squirrel’s sword spiraling into the trees. Squirrel squeezed his eyes shut and tensed his body for the blow, which he prayed would be clean.
After a few labored breaths, Squirrel opened one eye.
He was alone.
The monk was gone.
Nimue ran down the winding stairs, along the impassive faces of the sculpted walls, until she reached the cracked marble floor. Lenore lay crumpled near the altar stone, her robes wet with blood. Several feet away, a dying paladin writhed on the ground in a puddle of blood.
“Mother!” Nimue collapsed by her mother’s body. “Mother, I’m here.” Nimue took her mother’s head into her lap, revealing a bloody dagger beneath her. She was curled around something wrapped in sackcloth and tied with rope. A large stone had been removed from beneath the altar, revealing what had been a hidden resting place for whatever this was.
Lenore took hold of Nimue’s arms. Her hair was wild and her cheeks smeared with blood, but her eyes were clear and her voice steady. “Take this to Merlin. Find him. I don’t know how.” Lenore thrust the object into Nimue’s hands. “He’ll know what to do.”
Nimue shook her head. “We have to run—Mother! Now! Mother—!”
“This is your charge. Bring this to Merlin. This is all that matters now.”
Nimue regarded the bundle with confusion. “What are you saying? Merlin’s a story. I don’t understand—”
But before Lenore could answer, a paladin with sallow cheeks entered the temple, blood dripping from his sword.
Lenore used the altar stone to drag herself to her feet. She picked up the dagger on the floor. “Run, Nimue.”
Nimue clutched the bundle to her breast and froze with indecision. “I won’t leave you.”
“Run!” Lenore screamed.
Nimue managed to take a few steps toward the stairs, and the Red Paladin moved to block her. His dull black eyes flicked between Nimue and Lenore.
Lenore was pale and unsteady from loss of blood, but she advanced on the paladin.
“Mother!” Nimue cried.
Lenore looked at her daughter with eyes filled with love and remorse. “I love you. I’m sorry this falls to you. You must find Merlin.” At this she turned and lunged at the Red Paladin with the dagger, giving Nimue a second to escape.
Through eyes blurred with tears, Nimue clawed up the pathway of the Sunken Temple, fighting the impulse to look back, wishing herself deaf to the sounds of struggle below. Clutching the bundle under her arm, she staggered through the veil of ivy and into the Iron Wood. She ran to the lookout where, just a morning before, she and Squirrel had laughed and wrestled.
From here all of Dewdenn unfurled before her. She saw the hill of burning crosses and paladins on horseback charging across the field from the east to cut off those attempting to escape. At the bottom of the hill, another group of paladins freed huge black wolves from their leashes and set them after the remaining villagers. Nimue spun around and raced back into the forest, praying to the Old Gods of the Sky Folk to guide her.
At that moment, the skies above Castle Pendragon boiled and heaved. The archers atop the gatehouse had never seen a storm come on so suddenly and with such menace. They took shelter in the alcoves as lightning pulsed within the clouds and ripples of thunder shuddered the castle stones.
Hundreds of feet above, in Pendragon’s highest flanking tower, Merlin completed painting a large circle on the floor in heavy grease. At the center of the circle lay an open spell book. Out of practice, Merlin double-checked the incantations. He might have lost his magic, but he was still a master scholar of the dark arts. Rising, he pushed aside the feathered talismans he’d hung from the timber in order to position four heavy mirrors, each at opposite angles of the turret. Merlin relit several large candles of invocation that had gone out during the heavy wind gusts. With the candle flames, he kindled a branch of wormwood and waved the smoke about before dropping the branch nto the grease circle, causing it, too, to ignite.
Another peal of thunder shook the castle, and a shout was heard from outside. “We’re coming in! This is bloody madness!”
“No!” Merlin barked, swinging back toward the door.
Outside on the wall, footmen Chist and Borley held on to the bricks as the wind swept through with enough force to lift them off their feet. Driving hail danced off the bricks and rattled their helmets.
“You’ll do no such thing!” Merlin bellowed as he hurried from the turret into the wind and sleet in a state of manic urgency. He pulled himself onto the battlement. His robes fluttered above a two-hundred-foot drop. The footmen reached for him, but he paid them no mind. Merlin muttered incantations under his breath in a language older than Latin. He tied a pouch of powdered crystal and crushed eggshells, mixed into a paste with his own blood, to a twenty-foot iron pole etched with runes. One end he fastened to a banner housing, with the other end pointed to the heaving sky. There was a time when I was the storm, Merlin thought. When the lightning flew from my fingertips and the winds roared at my command. Instead he gripped at the stones as the wind tried to rip him over the wall. But Merlin was defiant. I am no longer the Druid I was, but I am not helpless. I am still Merlin, and I will know the secrets of the gods.
Merlin had attached a flapping scroll with melted wax to the end of the iron pole.
“You were supposed to be holding this!” he roared back at the footmen, referring to the iron pole, but his words were carried away in the storm. A tremendous bolt of lightning drew his eyes skyward. Inside a mountainous dark cloud, the lightning pulsed like a god’s glowing heart, beating once, twice, three times.
Merlin wiped the hair and rain away from his face, not trusting his eyes. Again, the lightning flashed inside the clouds, illuminating unnatural shapes.
“I don’t want to die!” Borley howled as he headed for the safety of the turret.
“Wait!” Merlin called after him, leaping down from the battlement. He grabbed Chist by the shoulders and threw him against the wall.
“What—what’re you doing?” Chist struggled, but Merlin held him fast, eyes shooting back to the light pulsing in the clouds. There it was again. Three shapes.
Merlin turned to Chist and pressed his hand to the three red crowns of House Pendragon against the yellow of his tunic. Then he turned back to the sky. The lightning pulsed again inside the cloud, forming a halo around three red crowns.
“Gods,” Merlin whispered. The signs were finally clear.
A
magical child.
The end of prophecy.
And the death of a king.
EIGHT
THE SHELTER OF THE WOOD muffled the sounds of carnage. Screams faded on the wind, until Nimue could hear only her own heaving breaths as she darted along the trails that had defined her since she was born. The map of her past had now become the slender path to her survival. She passed the deer grove and the hollow oak where the finches nested. Out of the corner of her eye, something black shot between the trees. Another flash of black scurried around the den boulders.
Wolves.
She threw her bundle onto the tabletop rock, a wide flat stone—ten feet square—that in kinder times served as a stage for child theatricals and a sun bed for lazy village dogs. Now it was Nimue’s last stand. She climbed onto the rock as the flesh-eaters rushed in from all sides, five of them snarling at the edge of the rock. One leaped halfway onto the ledge, and Nimue drove her heel into its snout, sending the beast sprawling to the ground. But it wheeled around and leaped again. Nimue backed away, cornered.
Behind her was a ten-foot drop, before her certain death at the jaws of the wolves. Another scrabbled onto the tabletop and snatched her boot in its teeth. Nimue screamed, kicking wildly, until the creature fell away, but it was only a matter of time.
A glint of silver caught Nimue’s eye, and she turned to the bundle by her feet. The sackcloth had torn away in one spot, revealing a dark iron pommel carved with a rune of four circles connecting to a center circle inlaid with silver.
“The drought is ended!” King Uther proclaimed, chin held high in victory as servers carried buckets of rainwater and placed them at the center of the feasting table beside the assembled guests. The buckets joined pewter plates of roasted hens, stewed rabbits, pigeons wrapped in bacon, honey-baked partridges, and plump pheasants. The mood was jovial even as the storm continued to rage. Each clap of thunder elicited gasps and applause as Uther stood at the end of the table.