I glanced at the trees, at the bog, at the moss and vines near my feet.
There was no time for this.
“Caradoc.” I patted my horse, whispering in his ear, “We must do this now.”
At the pyre, they had unwrapped the princess, and she lay upon the brambles. The men began wrapping roped about her as she struggled against them. She wore a white gown that caught the torchlight as if it were made of jewels, and I could see what might have been dark blood mixed across her golden hair.
I mounted Caradoc, holding my sword up, and just as I was about to give him a tap with my heels, I felt the change around me.
I felt the vessel.
Again the world slowed.
The strange lights came up as if emanating from the trees themselves, as if each had a soul of light within them that radiated outward. The bog seemed to be a sunburst that lay upon the earth, and the rocks nearby were of that violet color that shifted as if alive.
In that slowness of time, I began moving forward, and though I went slowly and the Caradoc moved as if against a quicksand of air, I felt those elementals follow me, as if the light from the oaks outstretched like hands from the branches, as if a thousand cords made of color moved with me.
Even those monstrous torches that encircled the sward emitted light that stretched and discolored into a black light, for the fire elementals could not be held back by Morgause’s enchantments.
For a moment, I looked back, and instead of mere light, it seemed as if a great creature, taller than the trees, rose up behind me. Its wings spread outward, its claws gleaming in the moonlight, the twisted horns upon its head like brambles themselves.
I saw for that moment the dragon that had been seen by the ancients.
The dragon that protected us.
The dragon that was our earth.
And then, I saw only the darkening trees.
Time had begun moving more swiftly, and I was flung forward into it. Caradoc charged onto the grass, his hoof beats thunderous. I could not be certain, but it was as if my horse were possessed of those elemental spirits that had reached for us. My ears only heard the booming of some distant night surf, but my mouth was open in a war cry though I had never heard one before.
The demon-guards had turned to look at me, and did not at first know what to make of this attack upon them. They drew their swords, and two of them leapt, as if they were lizards, upon the bier where Guinevere struggled against her ropes.
Still others came running at me, with sword and spear, and yet I did not feel fear at that moment. I did not think death would take me, for I knew that prophecy of my father’s own death—if his bastard son were to take his life one day, and if I were his only bastard, then surely this would not be the night I was meant to die.
The first of the guards reached me, and I slashed my sword downward, hacking deep into the shoulder of one; Caradoc turned, nearly spinning, as if born to battles such as this; I brought the sword back from the man I’d cut down, and rammed it into the throat of the other as he came at me, nearly leaping to my horse to take me. Still others came to me, and my mind did not seem to work anymore, but my limbs knew what to do and I thought I really was underwater for it was as if some channel brushed against me and I felt an energy greater than my own direct my arm as I thrust my blade deep into a man’s chest and then tore up to his chin. As I did this, Caradoc moved easily and did not rear up as I thought he might. In the faces of these guards, I saw that green-yellow of marsh-light I had seen in Annwn on my raveled journey. These wandering spirits were clinging to the flesh of these guards, who were already dead when I cut them down.
All but two of the guards had abandoned the pyre, and it felt to me as if they multiplied before me. They made no sound, though their mouths opened in what seemed like shrieks of agony, and those I had cut down rose up again, though some were hacked through with my sword. I had not noticed my own wounds, for something did protect me there, some amulet that I did not know I possessed, but one of these demon-spirits had pressed a blade deep beneath my right arm; an other had slashed at my left leg.
Finally, I had to leap from Caradoc or risk the horse being swarmed by these creatures that death did not seem to take. When I had reached the ground, I jabbed upward with my sword into oncoming flesh. As I rose up, I saw that there would be little hope.
I had no time to marshal my ability to vessel, nor was I still clear about how this might come about though I did not doubt the power of it.
And then I heard the sound of a distant horn, as of the kind used for battle. The demon-spirits drew back from me, and, with me, turned in the direction of the sound.
There, coming from the forest, the light of torches with them: an army of fifteen or so men on horseback.
7
As they charged into the light within the sward, I recognized them, for they did not wear armor or carry shield. These were young Eponi horsemen, wearing only the traditional trouser of the Eponi warrior, their chests bare and gleaming with the oil they used for their war ceremonies. I knew many of these young men from childhood, and I could not fathom how they had found me. And leading them, upon his mottled horse, Druid, in full armor, brandishing a long-sword before him to lead the charge—Lancelot, his helmet drawn back, an axe in his other hand, as his knees pressed into Druid’s flanks so that he could fight with both hands.
I thrust my sword deep into the gut of a demon-spirit near me, and soon my countrymen were with me, slaughtering the demons, though they nearly flew at us. I soon found that severing the head from the body would stop the demon-spirits from reviving, and so shouted man-to-man, “Take their heads and they will perish!”
I cannot speak too much of this carnage, for it was bloody and long as we fought them, and soaked as I was with the blood of the flesh, I sent six of the demon-spirits back to their darkness.
Still, none had reached the pyre, and I saw that one of the creatures crouched upon Guinevere’s stomach and leaned forward over her face, as if taunting her.
In his hand, a twisted and thorny bramble for kindling, burning at its uppermost tip.
I raced toward him, but did not think I could make it in time for the fire to be put out.
As I ran, I vesseled as best I could, and the slowness of things began again, and the light of the elementals came up for me. This light sliced between the bodies of men in their fight, with a sword thrust into a shoulder, or a spear cutting into a leg, and it was like a holy light from the Lady herself, for it seemed the light of the sun cutting through the waters of the Lake of Glass.
I vesseled all that I could, and what words formed from me were, Fire, free yourself from the hand that holds you.
Again, time moved swiftly, that unearthly light had gone out. I had nearly reached that stage upon which the princess lay, when the kindling branch’s fire caught to bright and seemed to burst and jump to the demon-spirit’s face, and, burning, it fell backwards, into the kindling that had been laid for Guinevere herself.
I had nearly reached her when one of the Eponi youth, a dark-haired man whose name was Malon, leapt forward, and in his face, I saw yet another green-yellow aura of the demon-spirit.
They were not passing out of the flesh of those guards at death.
They were jumping.
Jumping into our own men.
Malon brought up a bloodied spear that still held the skeins of flesh of those he had killed. He grinned as if he were a wolf, and his eyes gleamed a sickly yellow. He seemed to be speaking to me, yet was mute. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach that I would have to fight and kill one of my own tribe. Behind him, I saw the burning body of the demon-spirit as it lit the lower kindling that lay in circles of brambles just beneath the maiden I had come to rescue from this fate.
I had a sword in one hand, and a dagger in the other. As I stared at my opponent who had been fighting with me seconds before, I knew that I had to kill him. And even in killing him, that yellow-green spirit within him would leap into the
body of another. Was this man already dead before me? I could not be sure, and I felt that trembling fear that I would cut down my brethren for this foreign woman’s life. I would cut down a comrade-at-arms who had been willing to ignore the law of the tribes and lay down his life for my own and for this future queen of a distant and indifferent high king.
And worse, if I did not kill him, he would surely run his spear through me until his hands, curved in tight fists at the base of the spear, were close to my heart.
“You are commanded by Morgause of Orkney,” I snarled at him. “But she has led you into another hell.”
Malon’s grin broadened, and I saw blood along his teeth. He snapped his jaws open, and I saw that spirit light come from within his mouth like the mist of a bog in winter. He jabbed his spear toward me, and I leaped backward. I glanced quickly to my left and saw Lancelot also facing three of our own Eponi horsemen.
The vessel of life is the only thing that can stop these demon-spirits.
What is the vessel of life?
I thrust my sword and hacked against his shoulder blade, but Malon dodged this blow, again giving me that feeling that this was a lizard and not a man, for his bones did not seem to crack and his movements were fluid and snake-like.
I began to hear the cries of Eponi as they were cut down by their own, possessed now by these spirits.
And then, a new light came up at the edge of the treetops. It was not unearthly at all, but it moved more swiftly than I could recall that it had ever moved before.
It was the sunlight itself, and its violet rays passed like a warm hand across the darkening sky of dawn—yes, dawn, though it seemed hours early for it.
As I ducked and rolled to the earth to avoid Malon’s spear, I felt that vessel of life—that flow of water that was not water at all.
This was the vessel that Merlin had spoken of. The sunlight itself had been born too early that day, and had been called not by any art I knew to draw it from its resting place. These were creatures of night and the spirits feared that great sunlight for their power would be much diminished and though they might return at dawn, these had no power with the coming of the disk of the sun.
The slowing of time returned to me, and I felt that surge of power from those elementals around us—from the fire of torches, from the breeze, from those strange and wonderful colors that grew out from the trees and the grass and the earth itself.
For just a moment, I saw these terrible swarms of things, buzzing and moving as if with one mind between them, dodging the light of the elementals as they reached for them.
And for just a moment I saw her there, within the light.
8
I saw the vague form of that nameless goddess whose painting had adorned the cavern walls at the far shore of the Lake of Glass, that Lady whose Cauldron of Rebirth I had stolen, whose people I had betrayed through this. And yet I felt her presence, though her face was invisible to me.
And yet, this was her face: the forest light and the fire and the wind and the rain that began falling.
Her face was all.
Time returned swiftly, as it had done earlier, but I felt her there, the Lady of the Lake, come to me, perhaps called by Merlin to aid me in this, or perhaps called by my own vesseling.
As soon as I moved again in the real time, I felt I had lost something with the returning darkness. Perhaps that ability to tap into the vessel of life. I could not be sure. But the surge of power within me had abandoned me, as if I had asked too much of the vessel this night.
9
Malon fell before me, and as he touched the ground, I saw that spirit of corruption rise out of his flesh, its vulpine jaws spreading wide as if in a scream of agony, and then it broke into a thousand tiny bits, like locusts, swarming as it rose to meet the other swarms rising from the bodies of the men who had become possessed.
Malon’s eyes opened, though he did not seem to be well revived.
But there was no time left. The pyre had begun burning, and the white shining dress the princess wore had already caught the flame.
10
I leapt upon that bier. Using a dagger, I sliced through the ropes binding that fair lady for whom many had risked—and lost—their lives. Though her mouth was bound with strips of cloth, her eyes, full of terror, were opened wide and pleading with me.
The fires were around her, and I called again to the fire to leap away, but whatever of the Sacred Arts I once possessed no longer seemed to work. Magick would not put out these flames. I dropped my weapons and drew her up in my arms, her long dress burning. I jumped to the earth and rolled with her in that dirt and grass until the edges of her dress were ash and it had torn along her legs and shoulders, though she did not have burns upon her skin.
Tearing away the cloth that bound her, I saw in that instant her delicate beauty, which was so unlike that of the Britons.
She looked up at me and whispered in the frail voice of one who has spent a night in the camp of terror, “I owe you my life. Who are you?”
“Mordred, my lady,” I said, but did not wish to mention my parentage for fear of exposure.
“I am in your service, Mordred, and all that is mine shall be yours.” Her voice faltered as she spoke. “I will never forget that it was you who delivered me from fire.”
As I lifted her into my arms for her comfort, I saw in the sky above us that there had been no sunrise at all.
Darkness surrounded the torches.
What sunlight I had seen had been illusion. Had this been Merlin’s last gift to me through the Art? I did not know.
Had this been the vessel itself?
The vessel of life had brought us the illusion of the sun that the demon-spirits might flee this place. I had seen them in that false dawn, rising from the bodies of our men, becoming like a swarm of locusts in the sky, moving ever upward, drawn away from this place and the illusion of the sun’s rays that reached for them.
I felt an overwhelming sense of the sacred here, in this spot, and it brought tears to my eyes as if a great loss had taken place. A loss beyond any I had known or felt, and yet, in that loss, a lightening of my own spirit within me.
It was as if, for a moment, the mask of the goddess had been removed, and I had felt a touch of the source of existence that drew my thoughts from this battle, from this maiden, from this clearing within the forest.
Chapter Sixteen
1
After I had made sure that two of the Eponi protected Guinevere, I searched among the wounded and dead for Lancelot.
When I found him, sheathing his sword and turning about as if searching for someone, he gasped upon seeing me. His armor was half torn from him, for the demon-spirits had attacked him with great ferocity, yet he was unharmed.
At a distance of several feet, I said, “I asked you to stay.”
“I stayed,” he said. “With you.”
“Those spirits will return if they can,” I said, putting aside my other concerns. “It is the dawn they fear, not us.”
“Daybreak will come soon enough,” he said. “Those wounds need binding.”
2
Even as Lance rubbed the salve across my back and shoulders, wrapping my wounds with thin strips of cloth that had been soaked by Viviane and the priestesses in hawk-leaf, which sped the healing process and rarely allowed the wound to fester, I felt an uncomfortable distance between us as if we were thousands of leagues apart rather than close enough to reach the other with just a few steps forward.
“Morgause will not rest with this princess alive here,” I said when he was done and the last of the salve had been rubbed along my thighs where they’d been slashed only slightly. The soreness went away as soon as he had smeared the healing grease along my skin.
“We must hurry then,” he said. “Come here. Help me with my armor, for I have no need of it if we are to fly.”
I went to him and began to help remove the breastplate that had received blows to it, though it had not been penetrated.
>
He took my hand in his and brought it to his lips. He looked at me carefully, and said, “I am sorry that I did not listen to you.”
I turned my palm upward as he kissed it, and reached beneath his chin to draw his face up to mine. “I would be sorry if you had,” I said.
3
Fearing Morgause and the spirits she commanded, I mounted my horse and slid the princess on behind me. “Hold tight to me,” I said. “For we must ride as if chased by the sunrise itself.”
“What of these men?” she asked, glancing at the Eponi, some of who still tended to the wounded among them.
“They know the way to their home,” I said. “But you are in danger still. We must fly.”
Lancelot had been checking on the Eponi, some of whom had died in this battle, most of who were wounded. Then he mounted his horse, Druid, and joined us. “We ride for the coast, my lady,” he said with a sidelong glance to Guinevere.
I heard her sweet voice against my ear as she said, “The knight who is your lover is a beautiful man. You are lucky, sir.”
I took this in stride and glanced over at Lance, nodding to him as our horses began galloping toward the forest path again that we might make it to the sea before the next nightfall.
We rode hard that day, and did not stop at the Isle of Glass and its caverns, though I longed to find out if Merlin had survived the night. But Guinevere would not be well received by the tribes, and Morgause might bring her fury down upon those we loved there if she knew they hid the princess.
We reached the marshes by the Dragon’s Mount too late to hire a boatman; however, Guinevere had jewels that she passed to a fisherman, and so bought a small boat that was barely serviceable—with two oars, no sail, and of a size that would not balance should one of us stand.
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